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A. S. BARNES & COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 



Walter Oolton's Works. 



WRITINGS OF REV. WALTER COLTON, 

LATE CHAPLAIN IN THE U. 8. NAVY. 
I. 

SHIP AND SHORE 

IN" MADEIRA, LISBON, AN^D THE MEDITERRANEAN. 
Illustrated with engravings. 1 vol. 1 2mo. 

II. 
LAND AND LEE 

IN THE BOSPHORUS AND ^GEAN, 

OR VIEWS OF CONSTANTINOPLE AND ATHENS. 

With engravings. 1 vol. 12nio. 

III. 
DECK AND PORT, 

OR INCIDENTS OF A CRUISE IN THE UNITED STATES 
FRIGATE CONGRESS TO CALIFORNIA. 

WITH SKETCHES OF 

Rio Janeiro, Valparaiso, Lima, Honolulu, and San Francisco. 

Illustrated with engravings. 1 vol. 12mo. 

IV. 

THREE YEARS IN CALIFORNIA. 

With portraits and engravings. 1 vol. 12mo. 

" This work is an authentic history of CaUfornia, from the time it 
came under the flag of the United States down to the present explora- 
tions, new settlements, and gold-diggings. While the reader is instructed 
on every page, he will laugh a hundred if not a thousand times, before 
he gets through tliis captivating volume, and though he sits alone in his 
chair." — Washington Republic. 

V. 
THE SEA AND THE SAILOR, 

NOTES ON FRANCE AND ITALY, 

AND 

Other Sketches from the Writings of Rev. Walter Colton ; 

WITH A MEMOIR, 

BY REV. HENRY T. OHEEVER. 

Illustrated with engravings. 1 vol. 12mo. 



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SIA Alffl 1 ffil iAHLSle 



ETC. ETC. 



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THE 




SEA AND THE SAILOR 



NOTES ON FRANCE AND ITALY, 



AND OTHER LITERARY REMAINS 



REV. WALTER COLTON. 



llVitl) a Mnmvfyy^ 



BY REV. HENRY T/CHEEVER, 



AUTHOR OF " THE ISLAND WORLD OF THE PACIFIC, 
AND HI8 CAPTORS," ETa 



THE WHALE 



" Learning is not like some small bird, as the lark, that can mount and sing and 
please himself, and nothing else : she holds as -well of the hawk, that cart soar aloft, 
jind after that, when she sees her time, can stoop and seize upon her prey." 

Lord Bacow. 



NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY A. S. BARNES & CO., 

NO. 51 JOHN-STREET. 

CINCINNATI:— H. W. DERBY & CO. 

1851. 



t^\ 



.Gt.47 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-one, 

By a. S. BARNES & COMPANY, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 

District of New York. 



Stbbhottpbd by 

EICHABD C. VALENTINE. 

New Tork. 



F. C. GUTIERREZ, Printer, 
Comer of Jotin and Dutcli streets 



PREFACE. 



When the fragments and manuscripts of Mr. Colton were 
put into the hands of the Editor, it was supposed that an 
entertaining volume of Miscellanies could be made up, with 
little to do on the compiler's part but to select, combine, 
correct, and put to press. It was soon found, however, that 
none of the manuscripts, except portions of the poems, had 
ever been at all adjusted, or put into shape for pubhcation. 
All the diamonds in them were diamonds in the rough, and 
the gold was either in quartz, or scattered through clay and 
sand. 

The work to be done, therefore, was that both of the 
miner and the lapidary. The shaft here opened has proved 
a productive one, and we think it rare for the merely post- 
humous remains of a literary Naval Chaplain to yield so 
rich a vein. 

The part we have called '' The Sea and the Sailor" is 
made up mainly of two manuscripts, without a name, in the 
shape of Sermons, or Addresses, which it is supposed Mr. 
Colton was in the habit of using, or having recourse to, 
when preaching in behalf of seamen. Other appropriate 



8 PREFACE. 



matter has been incorporated witli them, and the whole 
assorted into chapters, so as best to answer the end had in 
view — the preparation of a volume uniform with Mr. Col- 
ton's previous works. 

The same has been done with the " Notes on France and 
Italy," which were left by the Author just as he jotted 
them down upwards of twenty years ago. They have been 
here revised and put into sections, and suitable insertions 
have been made when necessary to complete the integrity 
of the text. 

The Aphorisms, Laconics, and Selected Editorials were 
generally found complete of themselves, and have been 
furnished with titles. It is believed that the poems are 
worthy of the labor bestowed on them, both by their Au- 
thor and Editor, and that they will constitute a pleasing 
variety in such a volume of Miscellanies. 

The specimens of " Walter Colton in the Pulpit" will be 
valued by a wide circle of the friends of the Chaplain, on 
the ground of their intrinsic merit, as well as that of per- 
sonal regard for the preacher. Our honest aim has been to 
do him justice, and no other hberty has been taken with 
the manuscripts than we would like to have used in such a 
case with our own. 

For the aid given in furnishing materials and hints for 
the Memoir, by the brothers, class-mates, and other friends 
of the deceased, the Editor would hereby return his grate- 
ful acknowledgments. And to the bereaved widow of the 



PREFACE. 



departed he is under special obligation for her frank sub- 
mission to his discretion, of the prized letters and memo- 
rials of her husband. 

If a volume shall prove to have been made satisfactory 
to her, and to the wide range of Mr. Colton's friends, and 
vrorthy also of his fair fame with the public as a Chaplain, 
Editor, Author, and Judge, the labor of its preparation will 
be ever deemed by the biographer one of the happiest of 
his hfe, since the end he has constantly kept in view, of 
mingling the true and useful with the agreeable, will have 
been attained. 

In adding this work to the great fund of reading for the 
Parlor and District School Library, the most appropriate 
wish of the Editor and Publishers for themselves and 
their readers would be, that they might ever have to do 
with men and writers as noble, generous, and genial as the 
lamented Walter Colton. 

H. T. C. 

Few Yor:p, June 11th, 1851. 



CONTENTS. 



QL{)C Bca anh i\)c Sailor. 
CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

The Ocean in its Grandeur and Sublimity — The Ocean aa 
a Theatre of Man's Power — Triumphs of Sail and 
Steam — Its Effect on Character — The Traits of the 
Sailor — His Generosity and Courage — The Tar in the 
Constitution — On Deck and on the Parapet — Obe- 
dience to Orders — Insensibility to Danger 19 



CHAPTER 11. 

The Sailor's chivalric Devotion to Woman — Roughness and 
Honesty in Courtship — His way of bearing unrequited 
Love — Prodigality and its Causes — Jack at the Bunker- 
Hill Fair — His Price for a Kiss — Exploits of the Crew 
of the North Carolina — Buying a Hotel for a Ball — 
Giving it back to the Landlord — Superstition of the 
Sailor — Intolerance of the Shark and the Cat — Jack's 
way of getting a Breeze — Belief in Ghosts and the 
Spirit- World — A Messmate from the Dead — Indigna- 
tion at Injustice — Jack's Definition of a Nondescript — 
Battle between the American Roundabouts and the 

French Dress-coats 28 

1^ 



12 CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER m. 

PAQE 

Humanity of the Sailor — Emotions in View of the Dying 
Dolphin — Jack and the Porcupine — His Fondness for 
Excitement — Addictedness to the Cup — Temptations 
offered him— Government to blame — Abolition of the 
Whisky Ration argued — Facts in Point — Congress 
bound to supply a Substitute — Teetotalism the only 
Safety for Army and Navy — The Sailor's Susceptibil- 
ity to Religion — Privation of Christian Privileges — 
Error Corrected — The Sailor Remembered on the 
Cross — His Dialect the Wing of Prayer — Shaking in 
the Wind 41 

CHAPTER IV. 

Navy Chaplains — A Reformer in Word and one in Deed — 
The Capstan as a Pulpit — The Sailor in view of Death 
— Sickness at Sea and on Shore compared — Burial in 
the Deep and under the Sod — The World's Debt to 
the Sailor — Christianity his Creditor — His Life and 
Character little known — His Nature in Ruins — How to 
be built again — Homes versus Boarding-houses — The 
Plea of Philanthropy — An Appeal to the Pocket- 
Sources of Encouragement — Christian Philanthropy 
mighty 62 

CHAPTER V. 

The Relation of the Church to the Sailor — The Poetry and 
the Prose of his Lot — His Privations and Hardships — 
His Wear, Tear, and Fare — Now reefing on the Yard- 
arm — Now buffeting the Billows — Now a pale Corse 
in the deep Sea — The Lazaretto at Sea and the Epi- 



CONTENTS. 13 



PAGE 

demic Ashore — Home unknown to the Sea — Where to 
find Solitude — The Social Condition at Sea necessarily 
a Despotism — The Sabbath practically unknown — 
Effect of this Moral Bereavement 65 



CHAPTER VI. 

Peculiar Position of a Ship at Sea — A Question for Philan- 
thropy — Physical and Moral Disabilities can be relieved 
— The Responsibility of Merchants — Inadequate Med- 
ical Relief for Seamen — Public Opinion embodied in 
Law — The Duty of Men Ashore — How to impress the 
Sailor — Capturing the Citadel of his Heart — Hints for 
a Sailor's Preacher — What we can do — Hope for the 
Mariner — The Church his Patron and Friend — ^Plea in 
his behalf 75 



% ^ah of tl)e 0ea : 

A Poem 87 



J^ot^s on Stance anb Ital^. 

CHAPTER I. 

Cruising after Hibernating — Notes of the last Bird — Remi- 
niscence of Maria— Grudge against the Lady Abbess — 
First Day out — Hurry-skurry in Cabin and Ward-room 
— The Watch-boy aloft — We Anchor in Toulon — The 
Sentence of Quarantine — Practical Absurdity of its 
Regulations — A Hint for Restorationists — The Arsenal 
of Toulon — Naval Disciplme of the French — Suburbs 



14 CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



of the City — Hy^res — Massillon — A Nut for Socialists 
— Inquisitors of the Custom-house — Overhauling the 
Dead — A willing Farewell to Toulon 95 



CHAPTER II. 

Mysterious Sailing in a Calm — Speculations of the Tars — 
A Charmed Ship — The course of Time an Augury of 
Eternity — The way of the Wise Man — Approach to 
Genoa — The City of Palaces — Blind Musician and his 
Daughter — Effect upon the Crew — Their noble Lib- 
erality — Music of the Opera compared — The Carla 
Felice — Fantastic Architecture and Ornaments in 
Churches — Protestantism and Romanism compared — 
An Episode on young Divines — A sprightly Bed-fellow 
— Parisian Fleas in the Waltz — Tour through the Pal- 
aces — Glimpses of the Proprietors — Riddles to be 
solved 10 J 



CHAPTER III. 

Genoa and the Genoese — A Reunion by Moonlight — The 
Suicide's Bridge — The Dome of Carignano — The Altar 
of Hope — Reluctant Confessions — Chapel of John the 
Baptist — Canova's Grief, Hope, and Faith — Raphael's 
St. Stephen — Paintings of Rubens and Guido — Chapel 
of the Carmelites — Saloon of the Serra Palace — Paint- 
ing of Carlo Dolci — Asylum for Mutes — The Girls of 
Genoa — The Magdalen of Paul Veronese — The Bust 
of Columbus — The Past and the Present of Genoa — 
Aspirations of Hope for the Future 122 



CONTENTS. 15 



CHAPTER IV. 

PAGE 

Departure from Genoa — Drifting in a Calm — A Theologi- 
cal Frog — Consummation of Love — Anchoring at Leg- 
horn — Morning and Evening — Sequel of a happy Mar- 
riage — Mutual Recognition — Night after Lobster — 
Reminiscences of Childhood 137 



CHAPTER V. 

City of Pisa — Magnificence of the Cathedral — Violations of 
Taste pointed out — Galileo and the Lamp — Beauties 
of the Baptistry — The Leaning Tower — Extent of 
Human Credulity — The Campo Santo of Pisa — Soil 
from the Holy Land — Signs of Antiquity and Decay — 
The Ancestry of Pisa — Her ancient Glory — Causes of 
Decay — A Warning to the World of the West — The 
Disasters of Disunion — Dangers apprehended from 
Slavery — Duty to Africa 146 



CHAPTER VI. 

Custom-house Inquisitors of Lucca — We are robbed of our 
Cigars — We moralize like a Philosopher — Lucca from 
the Mountains — Groups of Peasantry — A joyous Wed- 
ding-party — The Croakings of a Bachelor — The good 
Offices he fills to Society — Virtues of the Lucchese 
Citizens — Liberty in the Mountains — A better Destiny 
for Man — Future Liberty, Fraternity, and Peace— A 
Tribute to departed Youth, Beauty, and Genius— Tri- 
umphing in Death through Faith in Christ 156 



16 CONTENTS. 



PAQS 

A Poem 171 



^|j|)orism0, ittdxims, anh laconics. 

Aphorisms, &c 193 

^tt Enfinisljeir Satire, 

In Verse 217 



SeUrtions from €bitorials. 

The True Freedom of the Press 231 

Rights of Private Judgment 233 

Editorial Responsibility 234 

Public Men 236 

Independence of Character 237 

Morals in Politics 239 

Morals of Congress 240 

Profanity in the Senate 242 

Politico-Religious Action 243 

The Bankrupt Law 245 

Revolutions in Europe 247 

Removals from Office 248 

The Slave-Trade, and Right of Search 250 

Domestic Slave-Traders 254 

United States Bank 256 

Resumption Day 260 

May-Day in the Country 262 

Associations of Christmas 264 

Early Religious Instruction 267 



CONTENTS. 17 



FAQE 

Customs at Funerals 271 

Province of Sabbath-Schools 273 

The Force of Parental Education 276 

John Quincy Adams 277 

Daniel Webster 281 

Death of General Harrison 284 

Funeral of President Harrison 287 

Mr. Clay and Mr. King 291 

Death of General Jackson 293 



toalter dLohon in tlje Ij^nlpit 

Dignity, Destiny, and Danger of the Soul 299 

The Sin of Neglecting or Denying Christ 320 



Memoir of Eet). IJD alter Colton. 

CHAPTER I. 

The Vermont Family, and Sketches of Walter as a Boy, 

Youth, and Man 337 



CHAPTER II. 

Life in Washington, and Entrance upon the Duties of a 

Navy Chaplain on Ship and Shore 365 



CHAPTER m. 

Cruise in the Mediterranean, and Life and Labors in the 

Navy-Yards 376 



18 CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV. 

PAGE 

Departure for the Pacific, Life and Labors in California, 

and Private Correspondence 392 



CHAPTER V. 

Return from the Pacific, Engagements with Publishers, 

Last Illness and Death 409 



CHAPTER VL 

An Epitome of the Life and Character herein displayed ... 418 



THE SEA AND THE SAILOR. 



CHAPTER I. 

I LOVE the sailor — his eventful life — 

His generous spirit — his contempt of danger — 

His firmness in the gale, the wreck, and strife : 
And though a wild and reckless ocean-ranger, 

God grant he make that port, when life is o'er. 

Where storms are hushed, and billows break no more. 

THE OCEAN IN ITS GRANDEUR AND SUBLIMITY THE OCEAN AS A THEATRE 

OF man's POWER TRIUMPHS OF SAIL AND STEAM — ITS EFFECT ON CHAR- 
ACTER THE TRAITS OF THE SAILOR HIS GENEROSITY AND COURAGE 

THE TAR IN THE CONSTITUTION ON DECK AND ON THE PARAPET OBE- 
DIENCE TO ORDERS INSENSIBILITY TO DANGER. 

The most fearful and impressive exhibitions of 
power known to our globe belong to the Ocean. 
The volcano, with its ascending flame and falling 
torrents of fire, and the earthquake, whose footstep 
is on the ruin of cities, are circumscribed in the 
desolating range of their visitations. But the ocean, 
when it once rouses itself in its chainless strength, 
shakes a thousand shores with its storm and thunder. 
Navies of oak and iron are tossed in mockery from its 
crest, and armaments, manned by the strength and 
courage of millions, perish among its bubbles. 



20 THE SEA AND THE SAILOR. 

The avalanche, shaken from its glittering steep, if 
it rolls to the bosom of the earth, melts away, and is 
lost in vapor ; but if it plunge into the embrace of 
the ocean, this mountain mass of ice and hail is borne 
about for ages in tumult and terror : it is the drifting 
monument of the ocean's dead. The tempest on 
land is impeded by forests, and broken by mount- 
ains, but on the plain of the deep it rushes unresist- 
ed ; and when its strength is at last spent, ten thou- 
sand giant waves, which it has called up, still roll its 
terrors onward. 

The mountain lake and the meadow stream are in- 
habited only by the timid prey of the angler ; but the 
ocean is the home of the leviathan — his ways are in 
the mighty deep. The glittering pebble, and the 
rainbow-tinted shell, which the returning tide has 
left on the shore as scarcely worthy of its care, and 
the watery gem, which the pearl-diver reaches at the 
peril of his life, are all that man can filch from the 
treasures of the sea. The groves of coral which wave 
over its pavements, and the halls of amber which 
glow in its depths, are beyond his approaches, save 
when he goes down there to seek amid their silent 
magnificence his burial monument. 

The island, the continent, the shores of civilized 
and savage realms, the capitals of kings, are worn by 
time, washed away by the wave, consumed by the 
flame, or sunk by the earthquake ; but the ocean still 
remains, and still rolls on in the greatness of its un- 



SUBLIMITY OF THE OCEAN. 21 

abated strength. Over the majesty of its form and 
the marvels of its might, time and disaster have no 
power. Such as creation's dawn beheld, it roUeth 
now. The vast clouds of vapor which roll up from 
its bosom float away to encircle the globe : on distant 
mountains and deserts they pour out their watery 
treasures, which gather themselves again in streams 
and torrents, to return, with exulting bound, to their 
parent ocean. 

These are the messengers which proclaim in every 
land the exhaustless resources of the sea ; but it is 
reserved for those who go down in ships, and who 
do business on the great waters, to see the works of 
the Lord and his wonders in the deep. Let one go 
upon deck in the middle watch of a still night, with 
naught above him but the silent and solemn skies, 
and naught around and beneath him but an inter- 
minable waste of waters, and with the conviction 
that there is but a plank between him and eternity, a 
feeling of loneliness, solitude, and desertion, mingled 
with a sentiment of reverence for the vast, mysterious, 
and unknown, will come upon him with a power, all 
unknown before, and he might stand for hours en- 
tranced in reverence and tears. 

Man also has made the ocean the theatre of Jiis 
power. The ship in which he rides that element is 
one of the highest triumphs of his skill. At first this 
floating fabric was only a ii-ail barque, slowly urged 
by the laboring oar. The sail at length arose and 



22 THE SEA AND THE SAILOR. 

spread its wings to the wind. Still lie had no power 
to direct his course when the lofty promontory sunk 
from sight, or the orbs above him were lost in clouds. 
But the secret of the magnet is at length revealed to 
him, and his needle now settle? with a fixedness 
which love has stolen as the symbol of its constancy 
to the polar star. 

Now, however, he can dispense even with sail, and 
wind, and flowing wave. He constructs and propels 
his vast engines of flame and vapor, and through the 
solitude of the sea, as over the solid earth, goes thun- 
dering on his track. On the ocean, too, thrones have 
been lost and won. On the fate of Actium was sus- 
pended the empire of the world. In the Gulf of Sal- 
amis, the pride of Persia found a grave; and the 
crescent set forever in the waters of J^avarino ; while 
at Trafalgar and the I^ile, nations held their breath, 

As each gun 
From its adamantine lips 
Spread a death-shade round the ships, 
Like the hurricane's ccUpse 
Of the sun. 

But of all the wonders appertaining to the ocean, 
the greatest, perhaps, is its transforming power on 
man. It unravels and weaves anew the web of his 
moral and social being. It invests him with feelings, 
associations, and habits, to which he has been an 
entire stranger. It breaks up the sealed fountains of 
his nature, and lifts his soul into features prominent 



EFFECTS OF THE SEA ON CHARACTER. 23 

as the cliffs whicli beetle over its surge. Once the 
adopted child of the ocean, he can never bring back 
his entire sympathies to land. He will still move in 
his dreams ovei' that vast waste of waters, still bound 
in exultation and triumph through its foaming bil- 
lows. All the other realities of life will be compara- 
tively tame, and he will sigh for his tossing element, 
as the caged eagle for the roar and arrowy light of 
his mountain cataracts. 

But let us leave generalities, and look more closely 
at the distinctive features of character which an 
ocean-life impresses on the sailor. Among these, 
generosity is, perhaps, the most prominent. You 
may take the most gnarled and knotted heart that 
I can be found, one where a kindly emotion seems 
never to have existed, and send it out on the sea, and 
it will soon begin to crack and expand. 

This same being, who, if he had remained on land, 
might have seen orphans starve around him without 
a pitying impulse, and cheated the poor sexton out 
of his fee for tolling the bell at his burial, will, in the 
development of his ocean-life and character, be seen 
dividing his last shilling with an unfortunate ship- 
mate; and when all is gone, show no dismay, or 
distrust of 

" The sweet little cherub who sits up aloft, 
And watches the life of poor Jack." 

You never see a sailor, when he falls in with a 



24: THE SEA AND THE SAILOE. 

fellow-being in distress, no matter in what clime bom, 
or wbat may be the color of his skin, play the Levite ; 
he acts the good Samaritan, and as naturally, too, as 
the blood rolls from his heart to the- extremities of 
his frame. 

]^or does the sailor ever meet a national foe in a 
spirit of malice, or of personal hostility. He fights 
not for himself, but for his flag ; not for his own honor, 
but the honor of his country. When the enemy has 
once struck his colors, he would consider another shot 
an act of cruelty and disgrace. If the enemy's ship 
be in a sinking condition, he dashes through the 
boisterous waves to reach her, even at the imminent 
peril of being carried down in the maelstrom of her 
disappearing hulk. 

He scorns stratagem with an enemy, or any ad- 
vantage which gives him the victory on unequal 
terms. He would hardly consent to engage a man- 
of-war in a steamer armed with a Paixhan gun, where 
he might quietly take his distance and riddle her at 
such a remove that her guns could not reach him. 
He would prefer throwing himself alongside of her in 
a ship of equal capacity, and then battling it out with 
her on what he would consider fair and honorable 
terms. I once asked an old sailor who had been in 
three signal engagements in the last war with Great 
Britain, and victorious in each, what he thought of 
the Torpedo system of blowing up an enemy. "Sir," 
said the old sailor, touching his tarpaulin, " I think 



JACK IN THE CONSTITUTION. 25 

it was a sneaking way of doing the business. It is 
only the assassin, sir, that stabs in the dark." 

Courage is another feature of character strongly 
impressed on the sailor by his ocean-life. He is al- 
ways in peril ; he lives with but a plank between him 
and eternity. If the sea be smooth, and the sky free 
of clouds at the setting sun, still before his midnight 
watch is out, his spars may be falling in fragments 
aroimd him, and the tempest roaring through his 
shrouds like the blast of the Judgment trump. Tlie 
caverns of the sea are full of sailors, who have sprung 
from their hammocks and gone down before even one 
prayer could be uttered. 

O'er their dark unfathomed slumbers 
Wakes no human wail or knell, 
But the mermaid pours her numbers 
Through her wild elegiac shell. 

Thus accustomed to danger in all the forms which 
the gale, the breaker, the lightning of the cloud, and 
the iron hail of the enemy can present, the sailor 
becomes a stranger to fear. Peril is his element as 
much as w^ater is that of the leviathan that floats 
around him. He has, therefore, no new character to 
assume, when summoned to a work of des2)erate 
daring. The same strong muscles, the same un- 
shrinking courage, the same indomitable resolution 
which are now to be tasked, have been tested in 
other life-suspending emergencies. He rushes into the 

2 



TIIE SEA AND THE SAII^OE. 



deatb-striiggle like the war-horse, whose arching neck 
is clothed with thunder. 

"When the Constitution fell in with the Guerriere, 
and it was hardly yet ascertained whether she was a 
ship-of-the-iine or a frigate, a sturdy sailor walked 
aft to Commodore Hull, and said in an eager, deter- 
mined tone, " Commodore, if you will lay us along- 
side, sir, we will do our duty." " Clear the ship for 
action," cried the commodore ; and they did do their 
duty. They captured the enemy before his recovery 
from the astounding eifects of their first broadside. 
They broke the charm of British invincibility, and 
filled the heart of the nation with courage and reso- 
lution. 

E"ot only on the battling deck, heaped with the 
dying and the dead, is the sailor firm, but when 
thrown upon land he is the last to quit the unavailing 
battery. When others had fled at Bladensburg with 
a speed that might have taken them to the foot of 
the Rocky Mountains, if not the shores of the Pacific, 
one stout fellow still remained at his gun, and was 
found when the enemy was within a few rods of him, 
very coolly ramming home to give him another shot. 
He was a regular Jack tar, who had very little re- 
spect for the lessons of the old distich : 



He who fights and runs away, 
May live to figlit another day.' 



When an order reaches the ear of a sailor, he never 



HIS INSENSIBILITY TO DANGER. 27 

stops to inquire what may be the consequences to 
himself of canying that order into effect. The pres- 
ervation of his own limbs and life comes not into 
the account. The order is all-j^aramount with him, 
and he obeys it as if it possessed an irresistible power 
over the energies of his will. It may be one full of 
the extremest peril, as is often the case, still he exe- 
cutes it as promptly as if danger were a fiction, and 
death a dream. 

An order given, and he obeys of course, 

Though 'twere to run his ship upon the rocks, 

Capture a squadron with a boat's crew force, 
Or batter down the massive granite blocks 

Of some huge fortress with a swivel, pike, 

Or aught whereby to throw a ball, or strike. 

He never shrinks, whatever may betide : 
His cutlass may be shivered in his hand, 

His last companion shot down at his side. 

Still he maintains his firm and desperate stand ; 

Bleeding and battling, with his colors fast 

As nail can bind them to his shattered mast. 



28 THE SEA AND THE SAILOK. 



CHAPTER II. 

Such men iiill not unmourned : their winding-sheet 
May be the ocean's deep, unresting wave ; 

But o'er that grave will wandering winds repeat 
The dirge of millions for the fallen brave ; 

While each high deed survives in safer trust, 

Than those consigned to mound or marble bust. 

THE sailor's CHIVALRIC DEVOTION TO WOMAN ROUGHNESS AND HONESTY 

IN COURTSHIP HIS WAY OF BEARING UNREQUITED LOVE — PRODIGALITY 

AND ITS CAUSES JACK AT THE BUNKER-HILL FAIR HIS PRICE FOR A 

KISS EXPLOITS OF THE CREW OF THE NORTH CAROLINA BUYING A 

HOTEL FOR A BALL GIVING IT BACK TO THE LANDLORD SUPERSTITION 

OF THE SAILOR — INTOLERANCE OF THE SHARK AND THE CAT JACk's 

WAY OF GETTING A BREEZE BELIEF IN GHOSTS AND THE SPIRIT WORLD 

A MESSMATE FROM THE DEAD — INDIGNATION AT INJUSTICE JACk's 

DEFINITION OF A NONDESCRIPT BATTLE BETWEEN THE AMERICAN 

ROUNDABOUTS AND THE FRENCH DRESS-COATS. 

Another prominent feature in the cliaracter of the 
sailor is his rough, honest, heartfelt esteem for the 
fair sex. His devotedness has all the generosity 
which characterized the highest noontide of chivalry, 
but without any of the follies and crimes which be- 
longed to that system of self-immolation. The ex- 
ploits of the knight-errant have been the very soul 
of romance and song, while the deatli-daring love of 
poor Jack has been hymned only by the billow. 



THE SAILOR IN LOVE. 29 

His love, it is true, has not that exquisite refinement 
which expresses itself in the delicate tints and odors 
of flowers, but it gushes up warm and fresh out of 
his strong heart. 

Were he to encounter you in a nocturnal serenade, 
with yom- sentimental eyes rolled up to the lattice of 
your lady-love, and with guitar in hand singing, 

Love wakes and weeps, while Beauty sleeps ; 

Oh ! for music's softest numbers, 
To prompt a theme, for Beauty's dream, 

Soft as the pillow of her slumbers ; — 

were he to meet you in this interesting attitude, he 
would be very likely to ask you what you wanted to 
disturb that fair sleeper up there for, as it was not 
her watch on deck, and he would advise you to call 
upon her when she should be wide awake, and tell 
her like an honest man, that you loved her, and ask 
her to ship with you for life. 

Were the gentle being whom you thus tenderly 
accost in these dulcet strains, in a house enveloped in 
flames, or amid the surge of boiling breakers, poor 
Jack's rough humanity would rescue her before your 
exquisite sentimentality had sufficiently recovered its 
wits to ascertain whether any thing could be done or 
not ; for he excels all men in presence of mind and 
promptitude of action. 

When you ofifer yourself to a lady and she refuses 
you, you would be gratified, perhaps, were she at 



)0 THE SEA AND THE SAILOR. 



last to wed a knave or fool, simply because she de- 
clined marrying yon. Not so with poor Jack — he 
wishes her all happiness, and hopes to meet her again 
on the great ocean of life; and does he meet her 
there, and in destitution, she shall not want while a 
shot is left in the locker. Such is Jack's retaliation 
of unrequited love. Were there more of his frank- 
ness and generosity in sucli matters generally, there 
would be fewer unhappy marriages ; for who ever 
heard of a sailor's troubling the courts for a divorce ? 
If he cannot make good weather on one tack, then 
he tries another ; but he never scuttles his sliip, or 
throws his mate overboard. A world without woman 
in it would be to him like a garden without a flower, 
like a grove without a bird to sing in its branches, 
like an evening sky without a star to smile through 
its blue depths. 

Another prominent trait in the character of the 
sailor is his i3rodigality. I^o other being earns his 
money through such perils and hardships as he, and 
yet no one spends it so freely. Tlie wages of a long 
South Sea voyage, or of a three years' cruise, are spent 
in a few months, often in a few weeks. The reason 
of this is the comparatively few convivial occasions 
w^hich cheer his hard lot, and a conviction that with 
him life at longest is short. 

His maxim is, live while you live — and that, it 
must be confessed, by no means in the highest or 
best sense : he says to himself, make sure of the 



jack's price for a kiss. 31 



present : he dips of the current as it flows. I have 
often tried to induce the sailor to hiy up his earn- 
ings, to put his money into the Savings Bank ; and 
have told him, by way of inducement, that he would 
find it there with interest in his old age. "Ah!" 
replies the sailor, " and suppose I should die in the 
mean time ?" This apprehension of an early death, 
and the novelties of the shore, make the sailor a prod- 
igal. He never, how^ever, throws away his money 
in the luxuries of the table ; it is generally in some 
freak of fancy, some whim which would never enter 
the imagination of any other being, nor his own per- 
haps, either, unless inflamed with the boozy wine. 

At the Bunker Hill Fair in Boston, among the 
crowds which entered the magnificent hall where it 
was held, there rolled in a frank Jack-tar of the 
deep. He moved along in his white pants, his blue 
roundabout, and new tarpaulin, till one of the ladies, 
and the most beautiful one in the hall, arrested him 
at her stand with a solicitation to buy some of her 
fancy articles. " E"o," said the sailor, " I don't think 
I want any of them 'ere spangles, but I will give you 
twenty dollars for a kiss." " Agreed," said the fair, 
when the sailor saluted her on the cheek, and, draw- 
ing out his purse, handed her twenty dollars. " Cheap 
enough at that," said Jack, and rolled on. Those who 
have never studied the sailor's character, may im- 
pute to him improper feelings. Not so : he would 
have perilled his life to protect that lady from indig- 



33 THE SEA AND THE SAILOE. 

nity ; and never was a thorough sea-bred sailor 
known to insult a virtuous woman. 

"When the crew of the Korth Carolina, on her re- 
turn from the Mediterranean, were discharged at 
ISTorfolk, several hundreds of them started in company 
for New York. They arrived, at length, in the State 
of Delaware, which they crossed on foot, (for railroads 
were then unknown,) and, night coming on, they cast 
about for quarters. The keeper of the hotel in the 
village at which they had arrived, looking at their 
numbers, and recollecting that his large hall had 
been engaged for a ball that night, declined all at- 
tempts at accommodating them. The mention of 
the ball struck the imagination of the sailors at once. 
They asked him what he would take for his hotel ; he 
stated the sum, which was moderate, as the building, 
though large, was old and somewhat decayed. Instant- 
ly they raised the amount, handed it over to the aston- 
ished keeper, and took possession of the premises. 

The ladies and gentlemen soon began to arrive, 
and were received with great cordiality by the sail- 
ors. The old hotel was for once brilliantly illumina- 
ted, and every attention was paid to the ladies which 
the re'spectful homage of poor Jack could suggest. 
When the gentlemen called for their bills, they were 
informed by the sailors that no charge had been 
made, and no money would be accepted. As the 
company departed, three cheers were given to the 
ladies. The sailors remained through the following 



J'KODIGALITY AND SUPEKSTinON. 83 

clay and night enjoying their smig harbor ; and, the 
next morning, calling for the landlord of whom they 
had purchased the hotel, made him a present of it, 
on the condition that he would never again turn 
aw^ay a sailor so long as a foot of unoccupied room 
remained. 

Now, whoever heard of landsmen purchasing a 
hotel from a freak of fancy, and then giving it back 
again to its previous owner ? It is that sort of busi- 
ness operation which belongs only to the sailor ; but, 
after all, it is quite as safe and profitable as many of 
the speculations into which much sounder heads 
sometimes enter. 

These are a few illustrations, out of a hundred that 
might be quoted, of the benevolent, careless prodi- 
gality of the sailor. He purchases a hotel to secure 
a night^s lodging, gives twenty dollars for the privi- 
lege of respectfully saluting a lady, and empties his 
purse for a song ! This trait in his character can 
never be made to undergo a radical change. It is 
blended with the veiy elements of his moral and so- 
cial being. It can never be reached by the lessons 
of a cool, calculating prudence : it is above the influ- 
ence of time and the force of circumstances. 

You who censure this trait in the sailor, did you 
ever reflect that you often spend your money for that 
which contributes as little to your substantial com- 
fort and happiness as he does? You spend thou- 
sands for splendid furniture in your dwellings which 

2^ 



34 THE SEA AND THE SAILOE. 

never yet started a pure impulse of pleasure, or 
relieved one pang of sorrow, but which you are 
vain enough to exhibit, and others weak enough to 
envy. 

Superstition is another characteristic feature of the 
sailor. He will never go to sea on Friday if he can 
help it, and still insists that the horse-shoe be nailed 
to the foremast, as a protection against the visits of 
the Evil One. How this rim of rough iron came to 
be regarded as possessing such a potent charm, his 
own philosophy, not mine, must explain. The Evil 
One, in his opinion, always tries to conceal his club- 
foot, and this shoe would so exactly fit it, that its 
very sight repels the intruder. 

A sailor regards the presence of a shark about a 
ship a most fatal omen to the sick on board. The 
highest exultation I ever witnessed on board a man- 
of-war, was occasioned by harpooning a shark that 
was hanging about us while a favorite sailor was 
sick ; though I rather doubt if it was the harpoon 
that saved the sailor's life ; and yet it may have had 
as much agency in it as the doctor's pills. 

A sailor will never tolerate in his ship a member 
of the feline species, especially if she has a dark com- 
plexion. We took on board at Gibraltar a large, 
beautiful black cat ; we were bound to Mahon, and, 
as it happened, encountered a tedious succession of 
light head-winds and dead calms. The sailors at last 
began to look at our new-comer as a sort of Jonas on 



A MESSMATE FKOM THE DEAD. 35 

board. Tlie next morning the black cat was missing, 
and suspicions fell very justly on an old sailor, who 
had been heard to threaten her life. I asked this old 
sailor what could induce him to commit such an act 
of cruelty. " Sir," said he, " we have been boxing 
about here for two weeks without making any head- 
way, and I determined at last to put that black cat 
out of the way. I didn't murder her, sir ; I tied a 
shot to her and she sunk without a scream ; and now 
you see, sir, we have got a fine breeze." 

The sailor is also a profound believer in ghosts : 
one of these nocturnal visitants was supposed, at the 
time to which I refer, to frequent our ship. It wa^^ 
with the utmost difficulty that the crew could be in 
duced to turn in quietly at night. You might have 
seen the most athletic, stout-hearted sailor on board, 
when called to take his night-watch aloft, glancing 
at the yards and tackling of the ship for the phantom ; 
and square off, muttering his challenge to it to come 
in some honest shape, and not be skipping about 
there on the sky-sails and moon-raker, half the time 
in sight, and half the time lost in shadow. It was a 
long time, in the opinion of the crew, before this 
phantom left the ship ; and no philosophy that was 
preached in sermons or otherwise could shake their 
confidence in its reality. 

ISTow and then an occurrence takes place on board 
ship which seems to in\^est these mysterious phe- 
nomena with some reasonableness and force. A sail- 



36 THE SEA AND THE SAILOR. 

or in one of our ships-of-tlie-line had died of a slow, 
lingering disease. He was laid out on a plank, as is 
customary, and after some fifteen or twenty hours, 
his messmates were called to wrap him ' for burial, 
when he rose to a sitting posture, white as his linen. 
With eyes glassed in death, he told the crew, as they 
were standing in breathless awe around him, that he 
had been sent back into this w^orld to warn them, and 
that unless they repented of their sins, and reformed 
their lives, they would perish forever. His language, 
though a comrnon seaman, was select and forcible, 
and free of the technicalities which make up the 
dialect of the sailor. 

When he had finished his admonitory appeal to 
the crew, which was uttered with indescribable so- 
lemnity, he sent for the commander-in-chief. This 
officer came to him : " Commodore," said he, " a few 
hours ago it was for you to command, and for me to 
obey ; it is now for me to speak, and for you to listen. 
Commodore, you are tyrannical to your crew, and 
profane to your Grod. You must repent of your sins 
and cast yourself on the compassion of Christ, or you 
are undone. My mission is now accomplished, and 
I must return." He then sunk slowly back again on 
his death-pillow. The body was kept for a week or 
so, and then consigned to the deep. 

Such was the appalling impression produced by 
this occurrence, that for several days scarce a loud 
word was heard among the crew, and tlie commander- 



NONDESCRIPT. 37 



ill-chief carried tbe iiiipressioii with him to the grave. 
I had this narrative from the sm-geon of the ship, 
who was present and witnessed the whole. 

If you ask me whether I believe this sailor had 
really departed to the world of spirits and reappeared 
among iis again, I answer that I have stated the facts 
of the case as related to me by an eye-witness, and I 
leave you to draw your own inferences. I know 
nothing in the Bible which discredits a belief in the 
return of departed spirits. One shadowy visitant 
may be sent to startle the sinner from his fatal slum- 
bers ; and others may be commissioned to cheer the 
weak, to sustain the dying : 

Hark ! they whisper : angels say, 
Sister spirit, come away. 

The uncomplaining submission of the sailor to just 
punishment, and his indignation at unmerited chastise- 
ment and rebuke, form another prominent trait in his 
character. He seldom seeks, when guilty, to escape 
the penalty through prevarication and deceit. He 
has no lawyer to tell him to plead not guilty, and 
to extricate him through some technical informality 
in the proceedings. He acknowledges his offence, 
and submits to the punishment as an admonition to 
himself and others too. But he resents, with the full 
force of his moral nature, even the imputation of 
crime when innocent. 

When Small confessed his participation in the pro- 



38 THE SEA AND THE SAILOR. 



jected mutiny on board tlie Somers, not the shadow 
of a shade of doubt respecting his guilt rested on my 
mind. Had he been innocent, the very keel of that 
ship would have trembled with his remonstrance. A 
sailor tamely submitting to death in expiation of a 
crime he never committed or purposed! — such a thing 
is not known in all the annals of the ocean. 

He will not silently submit even to an opprobrious 

epithet on board a man-of-war. One of our officers 

in charge of the deck called a sailor a nondescript. 

He had scolded him for some supposed neglect of 

duty, and then said, " Go forward ! you are such a 

perfect nondescript, I don't know what to do with 

you." Forward the sailor went, muttering to himself, 

" Nondescript — what does that mean ? Here, Larkin, 

can you tell me what nondescript means ?" " Why, 

what do you want to know what nondescript means 

for ?" " Why, the officer of the deck called me a 

nondescript, and it means something bad, I know, for 

he was angry." '* Well, I don't know what it means," 

said Larkin : " send for Wilkins, he can tell." l^ow, 

Wilkins was a sort of ship's dictionary ; and, though 

ignorant as any on board, he had a reason for every 

thino;, and a definition besides. So Wilkins came : 

" What is the meaning of nondescript ?" inquired the 

aggrieved sailor. " Nondescript," said Wilkins, after 

a moment's pause, " nondescript means one who gets 

into heaven without being regularly entered on the 

books." "Is that all it means?" said the sailor: 



THE POLLIWOG VS. THE ROUNDABOUT. 39 

'' well, well, I shall be glad to get there any way, 
poor sinner as I am !" If there was more of that 
sailor's sjnrit ashore, there would be less wrangling 
on doctrinal points. 

A prejudice against all innovations is another trait 
in the character of the sailor. Holding to ancient 
usage with the fidelity of a Turk, a habit conse- 
crated by time has with him a sacredness which he 
will not lightly surrender. He is attached to a cus- 
tom because it is a custom, 

And scorns to give aught other reason why. 

Ko regular sea-bred sailor will ever go on board 
one of our steam frigates, except by compulsion. 
He detests steam even in a dead calm, though he 
must lie there 

" As idle as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean." 

He thinks it fit to be used only in crawling ofi" a lee 
shore ; and even then, sooner than resort to it, he 
would risk a thump or two with the breakers. He 
likes an oj)en sea, long swee]3ing waves, an ample 
spread of canvas, a stiff, steady breeze, and the foam 
rolling away as if in terror from his careering keel. 

Some French sailors once went ashore at Mahon 
in dress-coats. They were encountered there by 
American sailors in their roundabouts, and a battle 
ensued, in which some bones were broken. When 
the matter was inquired into by the proper authori- 



40 THE SEA AND THE SAILOR. 

ties, the reason assigned by our tars for their terrible 
onslaught upon the French boys was, that they wore 
coats with tails to them. " I don't care," said Jack, 
" about the tails on their coats, if the polliwogs 
didn't call themselves sailors ; they disgrace the pro- 
fession, sir." A sailor, fickle and impulsive as he 
may be on other subjects, is firm in his prejudices. 

He is a child of mere impulse and passion, 
Whose prejudice oft deals his hottest blows, 

And fickle as the most ephemeral fashion, 
Save in the cut and color of his clothes ; 

And in a set of phrases, which on land 

The wisest head could never understand. 



HUMANITY OF THE SAILOR. 41 



CHAPTER III. 

He thinks his dialect the very best 
That ever flowed from any human lip, 

And whether in his prayers, or at a jest, 
Uses the terms for managing a ship ; 

And even in death would order up the helm. 

In hope to clear the " undiscovered realm." 

HUMANITY OF THE SAILOR EMOTIONS IN VIEW OF THE DYING DOLPHIN 

JACK AND THE PORCUPINE HIS FONDNESS FOR EXCITEMENT ADDICTED- 

NESS TO THE CUP TEMPTATIONS OFFERED HIM GOVERNMENT TO BLAME 

ABOLITION OF THE WHISKY RATION ARGUED FACTS IN POINT CON- 
GRESS BOUND TO SUPPLY A SUBSTITUTE TEETOTALISM THE ONLY SAFETY 

FOR ARMY AND NAVY THE SAILOR's SUSCEPTIBILITY TO RELIGION PRI- 
VATION OF CHRISTIAN PRIVILEGES ERROR CORRECTED THE SAILOR 

REMEMBERED ON THE CROSS HIS DIALECT THE WING OF PRAYER 

SHAKING IN THE WIND. 

Another feature in the character of the sailor is 
his humanity to dumb animals. Though he may 
knock down a T rench sailor for wearing a coat with 
a tail to it, he will never turn out a poor old faithful 
horse on a public common to die. He leaves such 
accursed inhumanity to those who surfeit the guest, 
and starve his steed. 

When pushed hard for fresh provisions on a cruise 
in the West Indies, we took our lines and angled for 
the dolphin. One was at last hooked and brought on 
board. As this most beautiful fish of the ocean was 



-12 THE SEA AND THE SAILOR. 

dying, I observed an old sailor leaning over it and 
watching its spasms. As its complexion trembled 
through the successive colors of the rainbow to the 
last one, when death set its seal, a big tear floated in 
the eye of the old tar, while his lips half unconsciously 
murmured, '' That's hard — that's hard." He believes 
with Shakspeare, 

" The poor beetle that we tread upon, 
In corporal suffering feels a pang 
As great as when a giant dies." 

We had on board the Constellation a lamb, which 
became quite a pet with our crew, but from a fracture 
of one of its limbs by the falling of a belay ing-pin, 
it became necessary to kill it ; but not a sailor who 
had played with it would touch a morsel of its meat. 
" Eat Tommy !" said Jack ; " I would as soon eat my 
own child." 

We had also many pets on board, among them the 
greyhound, the gazelle, the falcon, and that most en- 
deared of all pets, the carrier pigeon ; but the favorite 
with the sailors was the fretful porcupine. They re- 
spected him, for they said he could take care of him- 
self; and indeed he did, as there was scarce a nook 
or corner of the ship where the rogue did not commit 
his depredations. Our ]!^ewfoundland dog was trained 
by the sailors to take his station regularly when all 
hands were called, and he always led off when the 
main-tack was manned. Our sailors could manage 



LOVE OF EXCITEMENT. 43 



every thing but the monkey ; they could never make 
any thing out of that mischievous caricature of 



man 



Another feature of character impressed on the 
sailor by his ocean life, is a passionate fondness for 
excitement. The great element on which he moves 
is never at rest. If it be quiet at one point, storms 
are howling and breakers lifting their voices in thun- 
der at another. Here, an iceberg, in mountain ma- 
jesty, tumbles on its terrific way ; there, a roaring 
waterspout seems as if emptying another ocean from 
the clouds ; and yonder, the vast maelstrom draws 
whole navies down its whirling centre. Reared 
amid these stirring wonders, the sailor becomes im- 
patient of repose. 

It is his life's first pulse to be in motion, 

Roaming about, he scarce knows where or w!iy ; 

He looks upon the dim and shadowy ocean 
As his home, abhors the land, and e'en the sky, 

Boundless and beautiful, has naught to please. 

Except some clouds which promise him a breeze. 

He looks up to the sky to watch that cloud, 
As it displays its faint and fleeting form ; 

Then o'er the calm begins to mutter loud. 
And vows he would exchange it for a storm, 

Tornado, any thing, to put a close 

To this most dead, monotonous repose. 

This love of excitement in the sailor leads him to 
the CUP — liis flattering, false friend ; his companion 



44 THE SEA AND THE SAILOR. 

in moments of conviviality ; his refuge in hours of 
gloom. He sees not the serpent which lurks in the 
fatal bowl, and wakes up to his peril only in the 
death-horrors inflicted by its fang. And yet the 
Government, the kind, paternal Government, puts 
this poisoned chalice to his lips ! If you would re- 
form him, strike the fire-whisky out of his ration. 
Let the moral power of your disapprobation be felt 
in your acts, not proclaimed in your theories. But, 
instead of this, you go to him with a cup of whisky 
in one hand, and a temperance tract in the other ! 
The wonder is, that he ever dashes the whisky aside, 
and listens to the total abstinent lessons of the tract. 
And yet, not one-third of the sailors afloat in our 
national ships touch the whisky ration thus pre- 
sented to their lips by the Government. 

If Congress would forego President-making for the 
people, and give more time to those whose lives are 
at issue upon their legislative acts, they would better 
consult their own duty and the interests of human- 
ity. Nor can any man make a better nse of the 
influence of his name than by appending it to a 
memorial to Congress to abolish at once this whisky 
ration in the E'avy. Tliere was a time when most 
of those connected with the Navy were in favor of 
the whisky ration. It was regarded as an element 
which the habits of the sailor, if not the hardships of 
his condition, had rendered expedient. We were 
once of this opinion ourselves ; but experience, tliat 



TllK NAVY WHISKY RATION. 45 

m-oiit and final test of all things, lias produced a dif- 
lerent conviction. 

It has been shown, with, a conclusiveness that ad- 
mits of no cavil, that the hardest sea service is best 
performed by those who use no alcoholic drinks. 

I We adduce, in evidence of this, the health and 
strength found in our whaling vessels, where no 

I spirituous liquors are used, and where the hardships 
are unequalled in any other branch of our marine. 

I We have, also, hundreds of merchantmen afloat, 
where the utmost enterprise and vigor prevail, and 
where no artificial stimulants are used. 

But our evidence stops not here : we have men-of- 
war in service, where, among a large proportion of 
the crews, the whisky ration has been voluntarily 
commuted for other articles, and where still the high- 
est degree of alacrity and strength prevails. And, 
further, we have one frigate, at least, afloat, where, 
as we are informed, every soul on board, from the 
commander dowm to the loblolly-boy, is a teetotaller ; 
and where order, discipline, and energy are unsur- 
passed. With these facts before us — facts founded in 
experience — we are prepared to say that the whisky 
ration in the Navy can well be dispensed with. 

The law, as it now stands, makes it a part of the 
sailor's ration ; and no commander, not the Secretary 
of the N"avy himself, can withhold it. A large pro- 
portion of the crews of our public ships voluntarily 
relinquish it. A few, from the force of habit, or ig- 



46 THE SEA AND THE SAILOK. 

norance of the benefits of giving it up, continue its 
use. This comparatively small number are called on 
deck twice or thrice a day, where, in the presence of 
all the rest of the crew, the w^iisky is dealt out to 
them, and where their faces are lighted up for the 
moment with the delirious excitement imparted. 

Now what must be the effect of such an example ? 
What its effect on the youth of the crew, and on that 
sailor whose abstinent purpose sometimes wavers ? 
Temptations out of sight lose half their power. It is 
our eyes that give the forbidden fruit its charm. 
And yet no commander, under our present law, can 
refuse to present this pernicious, infectious example 
to his crew every day. He cannot have this in- 
sidious poison administered in secret ; he has no 
rio-ht to order the men down into the hold for the 
purpose ; nor can he cast uj)on the indulgence any 
stigma or rebuke. It is honored and protected by 
law, and he is obliged to respect that law. 

What, then, in view of all these facts, is the duty 
of that body which made this law, but to repeal it ? 
Can any man face this evidence and protect it ? Can 
he look at the evils which it inflicts, and plead for it ? 
Can he stand over the ruins of soul, mind, and body 
which it entails, and defend it ? No, no ; not for one 
moment. It ought to be abolished at once, utterly 
and forever. It ought never to have been incorpo- 
rated with the provisions of the service. But igno- 
rance of its destructive nature allowed its enactment. 



V7I1ISKY IN THE ARMY. 47 

That ignorance, however, now no longer exists, and 
there is no apology left for its continuance. Let 
Congress, then, strike it from our E'aval statutes, and 
substitute for its poison what will promote the com- 
fort, health, and strength of our seamen. 

Most of the evils, also, which exist in the Army, 
result from the use of ardent spirits. The gill jpev 
diem which Government allows to each soldier would 
not of itself produce these ruinous effects ; but this 
allowance only creates a craving appetite for more, 
and the means of indulging it to a fatal excess is 
presented by the sutler. Thus hundreds who en- 
tered tlie Army with habits of temperance are led 
on, step by step, in this ruinous course, till they sink 
into an untimely grave, or are cast into hospitals, the 
mere relics of what they once were ; while hundreds 
more drag out a miserable existence between the 
tempting cup and the pangs of a relentless chastise- 
ment. 

Such were not the men who achieved our independ- 
ence ; nor are they those u]3on whom this country 
could place much reliance in the hour of peril. They 
are a mere apology for a defence, and, so far from 
being fitted for active service, they could scarcely 
make even a reeling demonstration. 

ISTow all this wretchedness, misery, and death have 
not the slightest necessity to plead as an apology. 
It is in the power of Congress to banish intoxicating 
liquors from the camp ; and the voluntary surrender 



48 THE SKA AND THE SAILOR. 

of their allowance by the garrisons at Fort M'llenry 
and Sackett's Harbor, show that no great violence 
would be done to the feelings of the more rej)ntable 
part of onr soldiers if the sutler's license to deal in 
sj^irits should be withdrawn, and the whisky ration 
be commuted for articles that cannot injure the healtli 
or morals of the soldier. 

It is the opinion of General Macomb (than whom 
no man in the country has a better opj^ortunity of 
knowing) that ardent spirits can be dispensed with in 
the Army, and that incalculable good would flow to 
the troops from a vigorous prosecution of measures 
calculated to secm-e this object. 

But another feature in the character of the sailor, 
whom I may seem for a moment to have forgotten, 
is his susceptibility to religious impressions. A great 
affecting truth connected with the destiny of the hu- 
man soul, finds a ready access to his feelings. It 
has no prejudices to break down, no skeptical doubts 
to overthrow : it is unresisted by his intellect ; it 
falls at once, with its full force, on his heart. 

It is well for him that it is so : if truth reaches! his 
heart by the same slow degrees that it generally does 
that of other men ; if it had first to be filtered through 
the alembic of his intellect, it would rarely, if ever, 
accomplish the errand upon which it was sent. He 
has incomparably less time and fewer opportunities 
than other men. His home is on the ocean ; he is 
rarel}'' in a vessel that has a religious commander ; 



JACK AND KELIGION. 49 

and still more rarely in a ship where there is one 
wliose duty it is to instruct him in the great truths of 
Kevelation. 

He starts on a voyage across the Atlantic, or into 
the South Seas, or to the East Lidies, and during his 
long absence never, perhaps, once hears a chapter 
read from the Bible, or a prayer offered to his God. 
He returns, and is on shore for a few weeks ; he has 
no sacred and endeared home of his own to go to ; 
and he seeks those scenes of amusement, excitement, 
and conviviality which are congenial to his roving 
habits, and for which his long deprivations have 
given him a keen zest. Before the land has become 
stable around him, and the buildings have ceased to 
rock as the masts of his vessel, his money has been 
spent, and he is off to sea again. 

And now, is it strange that you cannot catch him 
in this whirl of enjoyment, and make a sober Chris- 
tian of him? Catch a wild Mohawk, and make a 
Cincinnatus of him as well ! There are thousands who 
live ashore in the midst of a praying community, 
have faithful evangelical preachings on the Sabbath, 
two or three lectures a week, precept upon precept, 
line upon line, here a little and there a little — and, 
after all, exhibit but faint traces of piety ; and then 
affect to wonder that poor Jack, thrown ashore for a 
few weeks among our grog-shops and stews, does not 
at once become religious ! 

The wonder is, that he becomes religious at all : 
3 



50 niE SEA AND THE SAILOR. 

indeed, he never would, did he not possess ten times 
the susceptibility which some of those evince who 
affect to wonder at him. Truth has to do its work 
with him at once : its sacred image must strike his 
soul with the suddenness and fidelity of the daguerre- 
otype impression. 

It is no small obstacle to the success of religious 
efforts with sailors, that they are generally considered 
as the least likely of any class in the community to be 
brought under the saving influences of grace ; and 
the clergyman who attempts it, is regarded by many 
as leading a forlorn hoj)e. When I entered the Navy, 
a staid clergyman of New England asked me, " Is it 
possible that you are going to throw away your tal- 
ents and education on sailors ?" 

I said to him what I would say to all such inqui- 
rers now, the sailor was remembered on the Cross, 
and if worthy of the dying agonies of the Son of 
God, he certainly is of the efforts of a poor fellow- 
mortal. The fact that the Saviour died for him is 
sufficient evidence that he may be, and in some 
instances will be, a trophy of redeeming love and 
grace. 

The dialect of the sailor, again, prejudices the se- 
riousness of his Christian character with the com- 
munity. You can hardly associate the solemnity of 
religion with the qiicerness of his nautical phrases. 
And yet, his dialect is the most concise and expres- 
sive known to human speech ; and it will wiug a 



SHAKING IN THE WIND. 51 

})rayer to heaven as fast as that conveyed in more 
polished terms. 

Among the sailors in one of our navy-yards, one 
winter that I was connected with it, there was un- 
usual religious feeling. Of the little crew attached 

' to the receiving ship, almost all became hopefully 
pious. I asked one of those sailors, as I met him in 

' the yard, how they were getting on as to religion. 
" Oh," said he, " we have all got on the right tack 

I now, except one, and he is shaking in tlie windP 

' !N"ow find me, in all the compass of the English tongue, 

a phrase so significant and expressive as this of the 

i situation of one hesitatinoj between inclination and 

I 

, duty. 



52 THE SEA AND THE SAILOR. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us, 
To see oursels as others see us, 
It wad frae mony a blunder free us, 
And foolish notion ! 



Burns. 



NAVY CHAPLAINS A REFORMER IN WORD AND ONE IN DEED THE CAPSTAN 

AS A PULPIT — THE SAILOR IN VIEW OF DEATH SICKNESS AT SEA AND 

ON SHORE COMPARED BURIAL IN THE DEEP AND UNDER THE SOD THE 

world's debt TO THE SAILOR CHRISTIANITY HIS CREDITOR HIS LIFE 

AND CHARACTER LITTLE KNOWN HIS NATURE IN RUINS HOW TO BE 

BUILT AGAIN HOMES VERSUS BOARDING-HOUSES THE PLEA OF PHI- 
LANTHROPY AN APPEAL TO THE POCKET SOURCES OF ENCOURAGEMENT 

CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPY MIGHTY. 

We have been told, througli one of our religious 
journals, that the sailors connected with our national 
service would be much better men, if their chajDlains 
were better ministers. This indiscriminate reproach 
was penned by one who had just entered the service 
as a sort of moral reformer. His rebuke, liowever, 
was confined to his language; it derived no force 
from his own example ; for when ordered to sea, he 
threw up his commission. This was Ms way ot 
showing his interest in sailors. 

I have nothing to say in eulogy of the chajolains : 
many of them are well qualified for their duties, and 



CAPSTAN FOR A PULPIT. 53 

are faithful in discharging them ; while a few owe 
their aj)pointments to political influence, and are a 
moral incubus on the corps. But a bishop inditing 
a party pasquinade, and a politician consecrating a 
priest, are both very much out of their calling. 

So far are sailors themselves from being removed 
by their habits beyond the influences of religious 
truth, that could I at all times select my pulpit, place 
of worship, and auditory, I would take the capstan of 
a ship-of-the-line, with her tliousand sailors on her 
spar-deck, and if I failed of making an impression 
there, I should despair of making it anywhere. 

It is true, however, that these impressions are less 
permanent than those made on other men, for an im- 
pression, the more easily it is made, is the more easily 
obliterated. An inscription in wax perishes almost 
■under your style, but engraved on marble it remains, 
and will be read long after the hand that traced it 
hath forgot its cmming. Yet, without doubt, many 
a sailor will retain the images of truth impressed on 
his soul, and will be graciously remembered in that 
day when God shall nmiiber up his jewels. 

Another feature in the character of the sailor is his 
resignation in death. He looks upon this dread event, 
come at what time and in what shape it may, as a 
fixed dispensation of Providence which he cannot 
alter. He regards it as the decision of a power which 
it would be idle to resist ; as the appointment of a 
wisdom which it would be impiety to arraign. Hence 



54 THE SEA AND THE SAILOE. 



he submits himself cahnly, and without a murmur, 
to the fearful issue. 

One call on his forgotten God to save, 

One thought of those he never more may see, 

A desperate struggle with the conquering wave, 
A wild farewell, a gasping agony, 

A bubbling groan, and all with him is o'er ; — 

Nor friends nor home will see the sailor more. 

Oh, there is something in this hurried form 
Of leaving life and all its lovely things, 

Which fills the heart with dread — 'tis not the storm, 
The rock, or wave, that gives to death those stings: 

It is the sudden, unexpected stroke 

By which our last link to the world is broke. 

Death is a serious thing, come how it may ; 

Fearful though it appear in our repose. 
When this our breath and being ebb away, 

As music to its mild, melodious close ; 
And where no parting pangs a shadow east 
On that sweet look — the loveliest and the last. 

But 'tis not thus the shipwrecked sailor dies — 

A sudden tempest or a hidden rock. 
And on the gale his fluttering canvas flies, 

And down he sinks, with one engulfing shock ! 
While 'mid the dashing waves is heard his prayer, 
As now he strikes his strong arms in despair ! 

It has been my melancholy lot to see many sailors 
die. In the West Indies we were swept to the sepul- 
chre of the wave by the yellow fever, and in the 
Mediterranean by the cholera. These diseases, suf- 



A BURIAL AT SEA. OO 



iiciently terrific on land, are inexpressibly more so 
-^'itliin tlie confined inclosures of a man-of-war. Our 
sailoi-s fell like the first drops of a thunder-shower ; 
but not a word of fear or complaint escaped the lips 
of any. As death approached, the sufiferer, confessing 
his manifold transgressions, threw himself on the 
compassion of Christ. As objects grew dark around 
him, as his breath ebbed away, and the pulses in his 
frame stood still, I have seen that eye lit with a trans- 
port over which death and the grave have no power. 

We die at home in the Sabbath calm of our hushed 
chamber; the poor sailor dies at sea, between the 
narrow decks of his rolling vessel. The last accents 
which greet our ears are the tenderest expressions of 
sympathy and afiection, such as flow from a mother's 
devotedness, a sister's truth, a husband's solicitude, 
or a brother's cares. The last sounds heard by the 
dying sailor are the hoarse murmurings of that re- 
morseless wave, which seems to complain at the delay 
of its victim. 

We are buried beneath the green tree, where love 
and grief may go to plant their flowers, and number 
over our virtues; the poor sailor is hearsed in the 
dark depths of the ocean, there to drift about in its 
under-currents, without a memorial, and without rest, 
till the great judgment-day. Always the child of 
misfortune, impulse, and error — his brief life filled 
with privations, hardships, and perils — his grave in 
the foaming deep ! Though man pity him not, God 



56 THE SEA AND THE SAILOR. 

will remember his weaknesses and trials in the day 
of his last account. 

It should be remembered and noted here, that the 
most of what is endured by the sailor inures to the 
benefit of his species. The whole world shares in the 
fruits of his sufferings. The light of the sun is 
scarcely more univereal than the benefits which flow 
from his enterprise. To his hardships we are in- 
debted for most of the elegancies, and for many of 
the substantial comforts of life. He is the only being 
who puts his life at peril to bring to our hearth the 
products of other climes, the fabrics of other lands. 

But for the courage and hardships of the sailor, 
what would have been the condition of this continent 
of ISTorth America, now the fairest abode of humanity 
and freedom on the face of the earth ? Would golden 
harvests wave over its hills, and the sound of its 
manufactories overpower the roar of its waterfalls ? 
Would the sacred temple heave its spire above a 
hundred swelling cities and ten thousand romantic 
villages ? Would the triumphs of philosophy and art 
adorn the portico and grove ? Rather, would not the 
primeval forest still gloom over these hills and val- 
leys ; their thick shadows be broken only by the wig- 
wam and watch-fires of the naked savage ? 

And but for the same daring enterprise of the sailor, 
we, who sit safely under the shadow of the American 
tree of liberty, might be slavishly picking the crumbs 
of a miserable subsistence, under the crushing weight 



57 



of the aristocratic institutions of Europe. Under 
God, it may be that we owe our very existence to 
the sailor, certainly much that dignifies and adorns it. 

But for the sailor, all intercourse with foreign 
lands would at once cease ; every ocean would be as 
impassable as the fabled waves of that sea over which 
even the adventurous bird never winged its way; 
our very position on the globe, central as it now is, 
would be as isolated as the Egyptian pyramid tower- 
ing above its desert of sand, or Mohammed's coffin, 
susj)ended between heaven and earth. 

But for the sailor, the breaking light of Christianity 
might have lingered for centuries on the eastern 
shores of the Mediterranean; and never, perhaps, 
have reached the magnificent throne of the Caesars, 
till that throne had crumbled under the iron heel of 
the Yandal. And now, who but the sailor carries the 
missionary to his field of labor, and the Bible to the 
hearth of the pagan — that blessed book whose holy 
light is kindling along the icy clifis of Greenland, 
throwing its radiance over the benighted bosom of 
Africa, and pouring the splendors of a fresh morn 
along the darkened banks of the Ganges ? In the last 
great jubilee of nations, redeemed by the love of 
Christ, millions on every shore will hymn the obliga- 
tions of the WORLD to the sailor. 

We have thus attempted to trace a few of the more 
marked features in the character of the sailor, as they 
are impressed upon him by his ocean-life. I have 

3* 



58 THE SEA AND THE SAILOK. 

sketched his generosity, his courage, his improvi- 
dence, his prejudices, his superstition, his submission 
to just punishment, his love of excitement, his respect 
for female excellence, his humanity to dumb animals, 
his frankness and honesty, his susceptibility to religious 
impression, his resignation in death. Those who have 
followed me through these traits of his character, 
with the veritable illustrations which have been 
given, have arrived, I doubt not, at this conclusion, — 
that the character of the sailor is but imperfectly un- 
derstood by those whose occupations confine them to 
the land. 

Another conviction must also have anchored itself 
in our minds, and that is, that the character of the 
sailor, in many of its features, is peculiar to himself; 
and that the ordinary rules of moral judgment, ap- 
plied to him, would do a serious injustice. We have 
found, in the analysis of his character, some traits 
which call for our stern reprehension ; but many more 
which claim our admiration and tears. The sailor is 
the most affecting illustration that can be found on 
our globe of the magnificent ruins in which our nature 
lies. Tlie massive wall and majestic column, the 
sculptured architrave and glowing frieze of this moral 
temple, are blended together in one common wi-eck. 

Such are the habits, tastes, and associations of the 
sailor in his wild, rude, ocean-life, that they quite 
unfit him for the elegancies, and even the sober re- 
alities of the shore. When he lands among us, seek- 



HOMES VERSUS HELLS. 59 

ing rest and diversion from the fatigues of his long 
voyage, where shall he go ? Friendless and kinless 
as he often is, he finds none to take him to a genial 
home, and 

Question liim the story of his life ; 

Of moving accidents by flood and field ; 

Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent, deadly breach, 

And love him for the dangers he has passed, 

As he would you, that you did pity them. 

Oh, no, onr Desdemonas are all dead ; though the 
tragic tales of Othello still survive in the disastrous 
lot of the sailor. 

"Where, then, shall the homeless mariner moor his 
ship, and find snug-harbor? Save in the establish- 
ment of Sailors' Homes, there is but one anchorage 
left him, and that is those grog-shops under the name 
of sailor boarding-houses, on every portal of which 
should be written, Tms is the way to hell, leading 
DOWN TO the gates OF THE GKAVE. For what is the 
fate of the poor sailor in these receptacles of drunken- 
ness and crime ? Just what might be expected : he 
is made delirious with drugged liquors, robbed, and 
turned half naked into the streets. If it be possible 
for Satan to be disgusted with any of the miserable 
wretches driven into his realm, it must be with the 
monsters who keep these dens ! 

From such monsters, less merciful than cannibals — 
for they devour their victims and end their misery — 
the sailor has but one refuge, and that is in the pro- 



60 THE SEA AND THE SAILOE, 

visions of pliilanthropy — in those homes which Hu- 
manity and Christian Benevolence are solicited to 
provide for him. In such a home only is he safe. 
In any other place he will inevitably be the dupe and 
victim of avarice and crime. 

I have no confidence in those sailor boarding- 
houses which have reformed themselves for the sake 
of custom. The motive stamps the whole establish- 
ment with just suspicion. They have always two 
systems of accommodation, as they have two sets of 
customers. They have cold water for those who dis- 
like rum, and rum for those who dislike cold water ; 
and little is the difference to them, provided only they 
can keep their man till they have gone to the bottom 
of his pocket. 

If it be asked where is the necessity for taxing the 
benevolence of the community for the support of the 
Sah^ors' Home, since he returns with the wages of 
his voyage in his pocket, I answer with another ques- 
tion. What are you going to do with him, who, before 
he has reached this Home, has fallen into the teeth 
of those land-sharks, and been devoured of all his 
means ? Where shall lie go ? Where shall he find a 
Good Samaritan and a hospitable inn ? Where, but 
in that happy resource of Christian Philanthropy — a 
well-organized and authorized Sailors' Home? — a 
home where he can rest from the w^eariness and fa- 
tigue of his voyages. 

These intervals in a sea-life are dearer to the sailor 



APPEAL TO THE POCKET. 61 

than landsmen know. Into them are thrown the few 
hom's of rest and enjoyment ^vhich relieve his hard 
lot. His sea-attire excludes him, on coming to land, 
from our large, well-regulated hotels. Nor could he, 
if admitted into one of them, endure the expense. 
Shall he be forced, then, into those abodes of vagrancy 
and guilt, which jeopard the peace and pollute the 
moral atmosphere of our large cities ? Long enough 
have these infamous haunts of dissipation and crime 
been the resort of the sailor. In them he has left the 
earnings of his best years, his peace of conscience, 
and his hope of heaven ! They have been the grave 
of his soul. 

We must, then, provide him with something de- 
serving the name of home on a scale of keeping 
with his better taste, and commensurate with his 
wants. It should be furnished with agreeable apart- 
ments, a wholesome, attractive table, and a reading- 
room, supplied with the papers and periodicals of 
the day. It should contain within itself sources of 
innocent recreation and amusement ; all intoxicatino; 
drinks should be excluded, and the whole should be 
under the care of a family who love the sailor, who 
will sympathize with his bereavements, watch over 
him when sick, restrain his improvidence, take a 
heartfelt pleasure in ministering to his wants, and be 
to him father, mother, and sister. 

Let such a home as this be furnished the sailor in 
reality and not merely in name, and you have laid 



62 THE SEA AND THE SAILOK. 

the foundation of liis respectability and usefulness 
here, and his happiness hereafter. But without this 
primary provision, all our efforts to elevate him. to 
establish him in habits of sobriety and virtue, will 
be in vain. Our house will be built on the sand ; 
and we shall find that we have but curbed and 
graded the stream of his depravity, while the fount- 
ain boils as high as ever. Here, then, is a tangible 
object which all who read can reach. If you cannot 
build entire a sailors' home, you can each put a stone 
into its foundation, and a brick into its walls. It was 
such contributions as these that j^iHared the mag- 
nificence of the Ephesian temple, and reared over 
the august shrine of St. Peter's the splendors of the 
heaven-sus^Dended dome. 

In such a home only as we argue for can the sailor 
enjoy religious instructions, or be brought under 
moral restraints. He is on shore but a few wrecks, 
or months, at longest ; and it is of infinite moment 
to him, as an accountable being, that divine truth 
and the elevating influences of correct social life 
should reach him in every shape j)ossible. Even 
witJi these brief advantages, he must be almost a 
miracle of susceptibility, if he do not go to sea again 
without any radical transformation of character. 
Without them, what then can be hoped for ? 

The moral results of this exclusion from the light 
of truth and the humanizing influences of society are 
fatal to any class of men, but fearful especially to the 



GROUNDS OF ENCOUEAGEMENT. 63 

sailor. It is this social neglect and Christian 
abandonment that makes the pirate. Cast any 
class of men, whose hearts the restraints of reli- 
gion have not reached, upon the ocean, and cut off 
all intercourse with the social influences of the 
shore, and they wdll become a reckless crew of rov- 
ing corsairs. 

Even in a three years' cruise in a man-of-war, though 
frequently in contact with the shore, there is often a 
perceptible degeneracy in those on board. Let this 
deprivation of moral and social influence be con- 
tinued, and the Somers' tragedy would be but a 
prelude to the bloody drama of horrors that would 
invest the ocean. So that the lives of the defenceless 
thousands who traverse the deej), and all the great 
maritime interests of the world, are at issue on the 
moral influences which you throw around the sailor 
while on land. 

It is proper to remark here, that there is nothing 
in the alleged failures of past experience to discour- 
age such benign efibrts in behalf of seamen, espe- 
cially when these efibrts are contrasted with results 
in other departments of Christian philanthropy. 
Twenty, and, I may say, forty sailors, have been 
converted to Christ to one Mohammedan or intelli- 
gent Hindoo, though the efforts and sacrifices for the 
latter would outweigh, ten to one, those made for the 
former. Yet, who thinks of abandoning the Mussul- 
man and Gen too to their fatal superstitions ? No 



f4 THE SEA AND THE SAILOE. 



one. We pursue our labor of love ; we exercise our 
FAITH ; we hold on to the pkomises ; and the Church 
will continue to do the same, unless her hopes shall 
have been realized, when centuries have rolled over 
our graves. 



CHRISTIANITY FOR THE SAILOR. 65 



CHAPTER V. 

Look to the weather-bow, 

Breakers are 'round thee ; 
Let fall the plummet now — 

Shallows may ground thee ; — 
Reef in the foresail, there 1 

Hold the helm fast ! 
So ! let the vessel wear, — 

There swept the blast ! 

Mrs. Southey. 

the relation of the church to the sailor the poetry and the 

prose of his lot his privations and hardships his wear, 

tear, and fare now reefing on the yard-arm now buffet- 
ing the billows now a pale corse in the deep sea the 

LAZARETTO AT SEA AND THE EPIDEMIC ASHORE — HOME UNKNOWN TO 

THE SEA WHERE TO FIND SOLITUDE THE SOCIAL CONDITION AT SEA 

NECESSARILY A DESPOTISM — THE SABBATH PRACTICALLY UNKNOWN 

EFFECT OF THIS MORAL BEREAVEMENT. 

We have sent our missionaries to the icj cabins of 
the Greenlander, the scorching huts of the Hottentot, 
the squalid tents of the Arab, the desolate shrines of 
the Greek, and the funeral pyres of the Hindoo. 
Nor would I recall one of these heralds of the Cross 
from his field of labor, or divert from their present 
object his messages of love. I would swell their 
numbers, and animate and sustain their efibrts, till 
every nation, enliglitened by the truths which they 



60 THE SEA AND THE SAILOR. 



convey, should exclaim — How beautiful are the feet 
of them who preach the Gospel of peace, and bring 
glad tidings of good things ! But I would say, also, 
" Go up, and look towards the sea." 

Those ships moving to and fro are freighted with 
human life. Those veering sails obey the will of 
men, who sway the strong ship to their purpose, as 
the rider his steed — of men whose graves miay be in 
the depths of ocean, but over whose immortal natures 
the gale and wreck have no power. Could they per- 
ish, could the wave wdiich sepulchres their forms be 
the winding-sheet of their souls, we might withhold 
our sympathy and concern. But they have spirits 
that will sing in worlds of light, or wail in regions of 
woe, when the dirge of the deep sea is over. 

It is this after state of being that gives the sailor's 
lot its strongest claim upon our Christian solicitude, 
and makes it meet that we should endeavor to miti- 
gate its physical evils, in order that we may secure 
its future and everlasting good. His life at sea, at 
the best, is full of hardship and peril. It can never 
be any thing else, so long as the winds and the waves 
remain. 

The 23oet may roll through it the melodies of his 
verse, and the painter throw around it the enchant- 
ments of his pencil ; but its stern realities will still 
remain, and still assert themselves in the tragic hor- 
rors of the gale and the wreck. The ocean's harp 
plays only anthems for the dead. 



TtiE sailor's hard fars. 07 

That they whose life is on the deep may, at times, 
little reck of the perils that environ them, is true ; 
but this is the result of being inured to the danger, 
even as the peasant, rocked by the earthquake at the 
shaking base of Etna and Vesuvius, sleeps soundly, 
although that sleep may be his last, and day may 
dawn over the tomb of another Herculaneum ! Tlie 
caverns of the deep are full of corpses which will 
start from their abysses at the summons of the last 
trump ; and millions will wake to an endless life of 
bliss or woe — 

"That sank into the wave with bubbling groan, 
Unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown." 

But when these last disasters of the sea are escaped, 
the life of the sailor is full of hardship. Of all the 
quiet comforts and fresh luxuries of the shore he is 
utterly bereft. The products of the garden, the fruits 
of the vine — all that give variety and attraction to 
our tables, never relieve his hard fare. His meals 
are made from bread which often the hammer can 
scarcely break, and from meat as dry and juiceless as 
the bones which it feebly covers. A flowing bowl of 
milk, which the child of the poorest cottager may 
bring to its lips, is as much beyond his reach as the 
nectar which sparkled in the goblets of the fabled 
divinities on Ida. 

When Adam, under the rebuke of God, went forth 
from his lost Eden, he still found some flowers spring- 



68 THE SEA AND THE SAILOR. 

ing up amid the briers and brambles that infested his 
path, and he still had a confiding companion at his 
side to share the sorrows of his lot ; but the sailor 
finds no flowers springing along the pathway of the 
sea, and no soothing companion there, except in his 
dreams of some far-ofi" shore. 

When the night-storm pelts our secure abode on 
the land, we can close our shutters, and quietly for- 
get its violence in the arms of slumber. ISTot so with 
the sailor ; it summons him from his hammock to the 
yard-arm ; there, on that giddy elevation, while his 
masts reel to the sea, while the tempest is roaring 
through his shrouds, the waves howling in tumult 
and terror beneath, the thunder bursting overhead, 
and the quick lightning scorching the eyeballs that 
meet its glare, the sailor attempts to reef sail ! 

One false balance, one parting of the life-line, and 
he is precipitated into the rushing sea. A shriek is 
heard ! but who, in such a night of storm and terror, 
can save ! A bubbling groan ascends — the eddying 
wave closes over its victim — and he sinks to his deep 
watery bier. His poor mother will long wait and 
watch for his return, and his infant sister, unacquaint- 
ed with death, will still lisp his name in gladness. 
But they will see his face no more. He has gone to 

That dim shore, from which nor wave, nor sail, 

Nor mariner has e'er returned — nor one 

Fond farewell word traversed the waters back. 

Tliese are not perils which overtake him merely 



DISEASE IN A MAN-OF-WAR. 60 

once in liis life, or once in the progress of a voyage. 
They come at all times, in every clime, and in every 
sea. They are constantly occurring links in the chain 
of his strange exj)erience ; they are his life's history ; 
they belong to the sailor's universal lot. They are 
the first as well as the last act in the great tragedy of 
the sea. 

When disease assails us on land, when a fatal epi- 
demic strikes our cities, filling all hearts with dread 
overpowering the timid, and reducing the brave to 
despair ; when only the hearse is heard in the streets, 
and they that look out at their windows are darkened, 
we have an escape left, at least a temporary refuge 
in the surrounding country. But when this fatal 
malady reaches a man-of-war, it comes like the exe- 
cutioner to a prisoner in his cell. Beyond the wall 
of that floating prison there is no escape but into the 
depths of ocean. Each must stand in his place under 
this cloud charged with death. He may not move, 
or even tremble, though the next bolt is to strike 
himself. 

Confined as all are to their floating lazaretto, they 
only can go over the ship's side, who move in silence 
and in canvas cerements to the sepulchre of the sea. 
That hollow sound — that plunge of the hammocked 
dead into the deep, can be imagined, perhaps, by those 
who have heard the coffin of a loved companion 
mournfully rumbling into its untimely grave. But the 
putrid corpses of the buried coming up through the 



70 THE SEA AND THE SAILOE. 

stagnant surface of the sea, and floating in spectral ter- 
ror around the devoted ship, constitute an appalling 
climax of horror which landsmen can never know. 

JSTo carnage that war ever yet made on the decks 
of a man-of-w^ar, can rival in terrors the helplessness 
and desj^air caused by the pestilence. Phrensy may 
fill churches when the earthquake rocks, but it is ne- 
cessity that dooms mariners to die in masses on a 
man-of-war, when the cholera, or yellow fever, or 
East India dysentery have invaded her. 

The battle and the breeze have exciting charms for 
the robust sailor, that reconcile him to many of the 
evils of his lot. But in scenes like those of sickness 
and death, he sighs for the shore, and the stoutest 
heart quails and feels, if it does not say with the poet, 

" Ah ! let me live on land, where rivers run, 
Where shady trees may screen me from the sun ; 
Whore I may feel, secure, the fragrant air ; 
Where, whate'er toil or wearying pains I bear, 

Those eyes which look away all human ill 
May shed on me their still, sweet, constant hght, 
And the hearts I love may, day and night. 

Be foimd beside me safe and clustering still." 

But how little is the sailor conversant with delights 
like these ! That word Home, with the thousand quiet 
thoughts and endearing associations which it brings 
with it, is not known to the vocabulary of the sea. 
Were strangers to enter our dwelling, turn our wife 
and children out of it, throw the furniture into the 



THi: SEA KNOWS NO HOME. 



streets, swing hammocks in the chambers, fill the 
parlors with the arms and munitions of war, narrow 
the foundations to a keel, unroof the walls, and set 
the whole rocking as if an earthquake were under it, 
we should have some conception of a sailok's home. 
We might possibly endure such a home, could wife 
or children share it with us ; but without them, it 
w^ould be like a ruined altar where the vestal flame 
had gone out, or a trampled shrine from which the 
divinity had fled. 

There is nothing at sea like home. The sympathy 
which sanctifies the domestic hearth is all unknown 
to the sailor. Those tender assiduities which flow 
from hearts allied, relieve not his rough experience. 
TJiere are no hearts around him into w^hich he can 
pour the sorrows that oj)press his own. Although 
the fountain may be there, and swelling up to its marble 
curb, tears may not channel his rough cheeks. His 
grief is confined within him, as lightning in the iso- 
lated cloud. 

It is this sense of loneliness, this excision from 
social love and sympathy, that gives to the sailor's 
lot its most dreary features. It throws a desert around 
him, barren as that on which the solitary palm of 
the Arabian desert casts its shade. "Would you 
know what real solitude is, wake up on board a man- 
of-war, or in the heart of London or Paris, where, 
among the swarming multitudes of the mighty me- 
tropolis, there is not one that has ever heard of your 



72 THE SEA AND THE SAILOR. 

existence ; and where your death would be as little 
noticed as the falling of a leaf in the great forest. 

The social condition and government of a ship is, 
necessarily, perhaps, a despotism. There must be 
some one there whose authority shall be supreme. 
Emergencies are constantly occurring which forbid 
all consultation. The slightest delay in giving the 
orders w^ould put in peril the lives of all on board. 
The shij^'s safety lies in instant action. This makes 
it necessary that her commander should have abso- 
lute sway. This authority, too, he must possess at all 
times. If emergencies only can confer it, who shall 
judge of the necessity? A disagreement on that 
point might result in mutiny. 

The sailor is, therefore, necessarily under a despot- 
ism, and is exposed to all the ill-treatment and cruel- 
ties which an abuse of this absolute authority can 
inflict. To question this authority is a crime ; to 
resist it is death. He has no alternative but in sub- 
mission ; and he does submit, though his wrongs lay 
in ruins his strong heart. 

ISTor do the hardships and cruelties which the sailor 
endures stop with those which result from oppression 
and tyranny in his commander ; the ocean has been 
incarnadined with his blood, to gratify the animosity 
or ambition of princes. Tlie terrible triumphs of 
Trafalgar and the Nile filled tlie English Isle with 
exultation ; but it filled the ocean with her dead. 
And never was the naval battle fought, or victory 



A MORAL BEEEAVEMENT- 



won, which the life-blood of the sailor did not pay 
for. 

Could the sea reveal its secrets, could the wrongs 
endured on that element find a tongue, there would 
be louder thunders there than those which roll from 
the breaker and the cloud. 

If the spirits of those whom Moslem jealousy has 
murdered and sunk in the Bosphorus still float that 
stream in the form of complaining birds, which never 
rest, the ocean might be covered with these shrieking 
symbols of outrage and crime. It is no wonder that 
the organ tones of the sea are so full of plaintive 
melancholy and grief; nor is it surprising that all the 
minstrelsy of the mariner partakes of the sam^ sad- 
ness. Any other notes with him are like jocund airs 
under the cypress that droops over the dead. 

Were there now an offset to all the sailor's dis- 
abilities in his improved moral condition when at 
sea, neither himself nor his friends would remon- 
strate or complain in his behalf But so far from 
this, the institution which is at the foundation of all 
true morality and religion, is almost unknown at sea, 
as to the observance required of it in the law of God. 

If the Sabbath bring with it a cessation from labor 
in some extraneous departments, still the great busi- 
ness of managing the ship in the midst of fickle and 
violent elements must go on. The sailor is, therefore, 
deprived of the greater part of the benefits whicli 
result from a regular observance of the Lord's day. 
4 



74 THE SEA AND THE SAILOK. 



This is a moral bereavement wliich no Christian 
community on land could long survive. To take the 
Sabbath from the heart and habits of man, is like 
taking the dew of heaven from the plant. The last 
weapon which Atheism has resorted to has always 
been its extinction. The little religion which the 
sailor possesses must take root then without such 
nourishment ; and it grows as do violets and myrtles 
on the verge of the avalanche. 



NO MINISTER AT SEA. T5 



CHAPTER VI. 

May pleasant breezes waft them home 
That plough with their keels the driving foam : 
Heaven be their hope, and Truth their law ; 
And Conscience keep their souls in awe ! 

PECULIAR POSITION OF A SHIP AT SEA A QUESTION FOR PHILANTHROPY 

PHYSICAL AND MORAL DISABILITIES CAN BE RELIEVED THE RESPONSI- 
BILITY OF MERCHANTS INADEQUATE MEDICAL RELIEF FOR SEAMEN 

PUBLIC OPINION EMBODIED IN LAW THE DUTY OF MEN ASHORE HOW 

TO IMPRESS THE SAILOR CAPTURING THE CITADEL OF HIS HEART 

HINTS FOR A SAILOR's PREACHER WHAT WE CAN DO HOPE FOR THE 

MARINER THE CHURCH HIS PATRON AND FRIEND PLEA IN HIS BEHALF. 

The moral condition of the sailor receives little or 
no advantage from the ordinance of the gospel min- 
istry. Not one ship in a thousand that floats the 
deep has a person on board whose sacred office it is ' 
to inculcate on those around him the precepts of re- 
ligion ; and by too many even the Bible has been 
considered as almost out of its element, and useless if 
sent among sailors. It reached the watch-fires of the 
savage long before it found the capstan of the mari- 
ner. It threw its light around the solitary steps of 
the Arab, when Egyptian night hung on the great 
highway of nations. 

Prayers may have been offered for those who go 



76 THE SEA AND THE SAILOR. 

down to the sea in ships, and who do business on tlie 
great waters, but they have been often passionless as 
purchased masses perfonned for the dead. The rela- 
tive position of a ship at sea to the rest of the Chris- 
tian world, has, until recently, been like that of a ball 
suspended in the centre of a hollow sphere. It is this 
isolation that has placed it beyond the reach, and 
seemingly beyond the sympathies of those who dwell 
on the land. Too many have regarded it as a thing 
with which they had no community of interest or 
feeling, no common bond of brotherhood ; and they 
have abandoned it to its calamities and its crimes. 

When guilt and misery have done their worst, 
when the pirate-flag has been unfurled where the in- 
signia of commerce streamed before, instead of ac- 
cusing their own moral negligence and apathy, they 
have seemed to regard the terrible spectacle as an 
exemplification of human depravity, in respect to 
which they had neither responsibility nor control. 

But the practical question now arises in a philan- 
thropic age like this — What can we do to relieve the 
ph^^sical and moral disabilities of the sailor, and what 
ought to be done by mercantile and Christian com- 
munities in his behalf? 

We cannot, it is true, lay the storms which reduce 
his vessel to a wreck ; but we can provide him with 
something better than a naked plank on which to es- 
cape from a watery grave. ISTo vessel ought to be 
allowed to leave a Christian port where there is not 



I 



PHYSICAL DISABILITIES. 77 

ample provision in the shape of life-boats for the 
preservation of all on board. 

The practice of shipping passengers without such 
a provision, is cruelty to them and treachery to the 
crew. In the extremities of a disaster at sea, there 
is no possibility of escape, except for the few who 
take possession of the boats. The rest must sink 
with the ingulfed wreck ; and the owners of such a 
ship unprovided with life-boats, have a responsibility 
which they must carry to the bar of God for the hu- 
man life sacrificed through their culpable neglect. 
Christian benevolence cannot, indeed, of itself furnish 
our packets and merchantmen with boats for such 
emergencies ; but it can expostulate with their own- 
ers, and through public opinion it has power to make 
that remonstrance felt. 

We can relieve the physical condition of the sailor 
in other respects : we can insist upon it that, first 
and foremost of all, his health and comfort shall be 
consulted in the quarters he is to occupy. To make 
room for an additional quantity of freight, he is now 
often obliged to swing his hammock where he has 
no wholesome air, or where he is exposed to the ele- 
ments. 

His hours of rest are always precarious ; and when 
they do occur, it is barbarous that he should not be 
allowed the few poor comforts which his hard lot per- 
mits. We cannot reprobate too sternly that avarice 
and inhumanity which are more anxious for the 



T8 THE SEA AND THE SAILOE. 

preservation of a bale of goods than the life of a 
human being. The horrors of the Middle Passage 
are not confined to the African slaver : they are 
found in other departments of the marine service ; 
and it is the duty of Christian communities to look to 
these wanton cruelties, and bring their authors to 
merited chastisement. 

We can also relieve the physical condition of the 
sailor in reference to his food. We cannot furnish 
him with the fruits of the garden and the fresh 
products of the field ; but we can insist upon it, that 
the provisions which he does have shall be whole- 
some and sound, and that they shall have all the 
variety compatible with a sea life. This variety is 
meager enough at best ; for there is not an alms- 
house in the country where the inmates are not bet- 
ter fed than the sailor. 

If he complains of his fare, he is met with re- 
proaches, and sent back to his work with abuse and 
menace. It is for us to come to his relief, and to 
bring the weight of public opinion to bear upon his 
wrongs. He cannot redress his own grievances ; but 
we can redress them, we ouglit to redress them, and 
we SHALL redress them, unless the instincts of human- 
ity within us are dead. 

We can relieve the physical condition of the sail- 
or, also, in reference to disease. ^N^o provision, 
worthy of the name, is now made for his relief in 
sickness. The pharmacopia of a merchantman or 



AVERAGE TEEM OF LIFE. 79 

wliale-ship that may have a large crew on board, is 
confined to a vial of laudanum, an ounce of mercury 
or blue ptll, and a few pounds of Epsom salts. Nor 
is there ordinarily a person on board that knows 
when or how even these should be administered. 
And if the use of the lancet be attempted, it is just 
as likely to strike an artery as a vein ! 

Yet, with these inadequate medical provisions, to 
which we would hardly commit the life of a pet dog, 
the sailor is obliged to traverse every ocean, and be 
exposed to the maladies of every clime. Is it to be 
wondered at that he does not live out half his days, 
or that the average life of American seamen is but 
thirty-six years ? 

ISTow it is for religious and humane communities 
to require that every vessel shall have attached to 
her, in the capacity of captain, mate, seaman, super- 
cargo, or loblolly-boy, a person who shall have some 
knowledge of medicine. The presence of such a per- 
son should be made indispensable to her clearance 
at the custom-house. If she attemj^ted to leave 
port without one, heavy penalties should fall on her 
owners. 

Public opinion must be made to embody itself in 
the shape of law ; and that law must be enforced, 
not by the occasional spasms of humanity, but by a 
consistent and profound sense of duty. It is the cer- 
tainty of its execution that gives a law its moral 
power. The Ottoman throne, with all its political 



80 THE SEA AKD THE SAILOK. 

deformities, stands, because the cimiter of the heads- 
man is sure to follow the evidences of guilt. 

I inquire now, "What can we do, and whafought we 
to do, to relieve the moral condition of the sailor 
which we have already surveyed ? We cannot, it is 
clear, gather these sons of the ocean into our churches 
on the Sabbath ; but we can run up the Bethel flag- 
over their own decks. They have no aversions to 
that flag, as a class : it is to them the symbol of 
peace and love, and the harbinger of that haven 
where the tumults of life's ocean cease, and the 
weary are at rest. It is a messenger-bird, come 
through night and storm from the spirit-land. 

Yet, let no one think that mere sentiment can 
mold the character of the sailor. The beings who 
compose that mass of life which stirs from keel to 
mast-head on board ship, are like rocks from nature's 
quarry — feeble blows will not shape them for the 
great Builder's use. Long before they could be 
fashioned by such a j)rocess, the hand that should 
attempt it would have forgotten its cunning. 

Occasion is every thing in making an impression 
on the sailor. There are pauses in the storming pas- 
sions which sweep our earth when the gentle accents 
of truth can be heard. There are periods of repose 
in the conflicts of the moral elements when celestial 
influences can reach the human heart. The dew 
falls when the Avinds are laid. These intervals of 
calmness and reflection are ever occurrinoj in a sea 



HOW TO TAKE THE HEART. 81 

life : and it is in these that the silent messages of 
truth will exert their greatest force, and produce 
their most decisive results. When the wind, the 
fire, and the earthquake had passed, that still, small 
voice became audible, in which the prophet recog- 
nized the whisper of his God. 

These messages of truth must be addressed directly 
to the heart of the sailor. Their power should be 
exerted, not on those phantoms of skepticism which 
flit through his mental twilight, but on their source, — 
not on those bubbles of frivolity which brim the 
fountain of his gushing heart, but on the fountain 
itself, and the secret springs in which it takes its 
rise. 

Of all beings, the sailor is most the creature of 
feeling. Impulse is with him the prime source of 
action. His heart is the bow from which the arrow 
of his life takes its flight and direction. It is his 
heart, therefore, that we are to move upon with our 
undivided strength : it is this that we are to be- 
leaguer with all our forces, and press upon it at all 
points, as the encircling wave embraces and en- 
croaches upon the diminishing isle. 

The heart of a sailor once captured, the citadel 
taken — the outposts fall. Even the last poor picket- 
guard of doubt and desperation lays down its arms. 
The smTender is entire : nor will that captive to 
Christ ever seek a ransom, or ever forgive himself 
that he held out so lono- before he struck his black 

4* 



82 THE SEA AND THE SAILOR. 

flag to the banner which streams in light and love 
from the Cross. But this conquest is not easy : un- 
tutored and impulsive as the heart of the sailor may 
be, it is yet too gigantic in its strength to be easily 
overcome. Cradled on the dqep, and reared amid 
the exhibitions of its gloomy grandeur and strength, 
moral realities must be made to take to his mind a 
corresponding vastness, solemnity, and power. The 
sailor must be made to 

Feel his immortality o'erleap 
All space, all time, all pains, all fears, and peal. 
Like the eternal thunders of the deep, 
This truth into his ears — thou livest forever ! 

It is also of the last importance to know how to 
approach the sailor, and in what shape to exert your 
moral strength. You should not waste your energies 
in attacking the phantoms of his superstition. You 
should not attempt to drive away the spectre, but to 
pour light into its grave. Let the response of the 
oracle go, but dash in pieces the oracle itself. There 
is an altar in the heart of the sailor inscribed to the 
unknown God. Him whom he thus ignorantly wor- 
ships, aim to enthrone there in the majesty of su- 
preme intelligence, rectitude, and love. Exhibit 
truth to him in its real character. Throw the prac- 
tical into prominent relief : let metaphysical distinc- 
tions lie where they belong — in shadow. But man's 
guilt, the cross of Christ, and the judgment-bar 



HOW TO AID THE SAILOR. 83 

bring out from the canvas, as if there were only eter- 
nity beyond. 

The sailor prefers to meet the dread truths of Rev- 
elation as he would meet the rocks of ocean, not be- 
neath the wave but above it, where he may be ap- 
prised of the danger before he is wrecked. He is 
open to these truths : he is not a philosopher to be 
reached only through his intellect. All the sensibil- 
ities of his ardent nature are so many avenues of ap- 
proach. 

Through these, we can cast pure or adulterated 
metals into the flaming alembic of his soul. There 
are with him, as with all men, moments when moral 
repulsion seems suspended, and when truth may 
reach his heart with the suddenness of the flashing 
sun's daguerreotype impression. That image, if you 
can but seize the favorable moment, though momen- 
tary in its production, will remain, and all its lines 
will be found distinct and legible, when the light of 
eternity shall play upon the tablet. 

Such are some of the methods by which we can 
benefit the sailor, physically and morally. K we 
cannot pour milk and honey into his cup, we can 
pour truth into his mind ; if we cannot quench the 
thirst which parches his lips, we can relieve the 
drought which withers his soul ; if we cannot calm 
the storms around him, we can lay the tempest 
within ; if we cannot secure him the sympathy and 
protection of man, we can ofier him the guardianship 

9 



84 THE SEA AND THE SAILOE. 

of God ; if we cannot lift him into authority, we can 
make him cheerful in a state of obedience ; if we 
cannot take the intoxicating aliment from his sea 
allowance, we can make him refuse to drink it. 

If we cannot ward ofi" from him disease, we can lift 
him above the fear of death ; if we cannot make him 
a philosopher, we can help to make him a Christian ; 
if we cannot confer upon him a possession on earth, 
we can offer him an inheritance in heaven; if we 
cannot make him the associate of princes, we can 
make him a companion of the saints in light. All 
this, through the divine assistance, we can do ; and, 
if there be joy in heaven over one sinner that repent- 
eth, this is enough. 

Our duty and responsibility, therefore, in reference 
to the sailor, reach to the joys of heaven and to the 
agonies of hell. The disasters of unfaithfulness are 
irretrievable. If Christian philanthropy abandon 
him, his ruin is inevitable. There are no other in- 
fluences but those of the Gospel that can save him. 
If he falls into the sea, he may clasp the life-buoy 
and be rescued ; but there is a deep to which no such 
provision of humanity extends — a deep where the 
signals of distress are all unseen, and where eternity 
only answers back tlie minute-gun of despair. 

Shall this be the portion of the poor sailor? Shall 
he, after all the neglects, hardships', and perils whicli 
he has endured here, lie down at last in sorrow ? 
Shall he have lived in exile from our Christian com- 



THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 85 

munities, to be exiled at last from heaven ? Shall he 
escape from his last wreck here, to be wrecked again 
and forever, when heaven's last thunder shakes the sea? 

Oh ! if wrongs could fit the soul for the presence of 
its Maker ; if cruelties endured here could win hap- 
piness hereafter, the sailor need not be without hope ! 
But the laws of our moral being cannot be changed, 
or the requirements of infinite rectitude set aside. 
The pure in heart only can see God ; and that moral 
purity is never the natural consequence of moral 
wrong. Oppression drives even the wise man mad ; 
how much more the fool, which all men are until re- 
generated by grace ! 

The Church must, therefore, be the friend of the 
sailor, the advocate of his rights, his patron under 
injuries, the stern rebuker of his wrongs. She must 
pity him w^hen others reproach, pray for him when 
others denounce, cling to him when others forsake, 
and never abandon him, even though he should 
abandon himself That love which never wearies, 
that affection which never forsakes, have rescued 
thousands whom retributive justice would have de- 
livered over to hopeless misery and crime. Many a 
sainted spirit, ere it winged its way to heaven, has 
cast on erring youth a chain of light and love which 
has brought its footsteps back to the paths of life and 
peace. The ocean, as well as earth, has its moral 
gems, which will one day sparkle in the diadem of 
him who has saved a soul from death. 



86 THE SEA AND THE SAILOR. 



There is a loss, compared with which that of life 
is not worthy of being named. From this fearful 
loss we can all do something to save the sailor. We 
have seen the moral perils and hardships of his lot. 
We know his uncomplaining fortitude, and his gen- 
erous disregard of danger ; we know his weaknesses, 
his sins, and his sorrows. He is a noble being, but 
in ruins. It is for us to recover him, to strengthen 
him in the right, and to guard him against the wrong. 
He is the child of impulse, the creature of circum- 
stance ; and it is our duty to see that these eventful 
influences are not fatal. He will repay this care in 
his gratitude, his reformation, and his prayers. Then 
give him a helping hand. He would spring from 
deck or rock, amid sweeping sea or breaker's foam, 
to save yoic / save him, then, from perils worse than 
those of a watery grave. 



A TALE OF THE SEA. 



We dropped our loaded net in quest of shells 
Among the tideless caverns of the sea — 

Those coral grottoes, where the mermaid dwells 
And charms the naiads with her minstrelsy — 

And " lifting in," found on its dripping comb, 

What brought to all the sweetest thoughts of home : 



A golden ringlet ! — fair, and soft, and flowing 
As on a living brow — once near an eye 

That flashed with light and love — nor faintly showing 
Dimness or stain upon its glossy dye. 

It seemed as if it had by stealth been taken 

From one who slept, and in a breath might waken. 

m. 

Would that she might awake ! but no, the seal 
Which death has dimly set, may not be broken, 

Nor can a look or line henceforth reveal 

Of all once worshipped there one tender token. 

And yet we linger near — and half believe 

'Tis some delusive dream o'er which we grieve. 



88 A TALE OF THE SEA. 



Oh that this fair-hau-ed tenant of the grave 
Could but one moment reappear to light ; 

And bless the living v^^ith the look she gave 

E'er death had throw^n its still and starless night 

Upon her radiant features — but, alas ! 

She sleeps beyond that boundary none repass. 



No more on her will beam the smile of love, 
Nor voice of parent, brother, sister, friend, 

Or aught of all the accents wont to move 

Her heart to gladness, on her dream descend : 

No more the breaking morn or purpling eve, 

Or thought of home her spirit glad or grieve. 



Still at her father's hearth the lisping child 
Will oft repeat in free, unconscious gladness, 

His sister's name — wondering that those who smiled 
At that loved sound, now look in silent sadness, 

Giving his artless questions no reply. 

Except a starting tear or deep-drawn sigh. 

VII. 

How came she to her solitary grave ? 

By treachery's wile, or grief, or wan disease ? 
By gale, or wreck, or pirate's flashing glave ? 

Where was her home — and who her kindred? — these 
Quick, melancholy questions, ne'er will be 
Solved by the incommunicable sea. 



A TALE OF THE SEA. 89 



A pirate once, while in his dungeon lying, 

To him who shrived his guilty soul, confessed, 

That on the wave o'er which our flag was flying, 

Those deeds were done which now his conscience pressed ; 

And 'mid the many then consigned to slaughter, 

Were two — an old man and his only daughter. 



IX. 

The latter was so young, so sweetly fair, 
The pirate-crew, in melting mood, agreed 

Her tender years should not thus early share 
The death to which her father was decreed. 

This sentence passed — the parent bade a wild 

And last adieu to his despairing child. 

X. 

His eye was cast to Heaven in silent prayer, 
Then to his daughter, as he walked the plank ; 

No word of weakness broke from his despair, 

As through the parted waves his white locks sank, 

And far above the circling eddies' close. 

One low, deep moan in bubbling anguish rose. 



But fear is ever with the guilty — they 

Who sought to save, saw in that timid child 

Their strong accusing angel — they could slay. 
And wade in blood — but one so undefiled. 

So free of all that virtue ever feared. 

With every glance their throbbing eyeballs seared. 



90 A TALE OP THE SEA. 



She read her fate in that dejected air, 

That meditative, melancholy cast 
Of countenance which men will sometimes wear, 

When they perceive their destiny has passed 
To deeds which all their sympathies disown — 
'Tis nature, speaking in an under-tone ! 



As round their victim closed the pirate ring, 
A sudden tremor shook her airy frame; 

Sorrow for her had no new pang to bring, 

But when a whisper breathed her father's name. 

Quick o'er her soft, transparent features spread 

The pale and pulseless aspect of the dead. 

XIV. 

And to the deck she fell — as falls a bird 
Smitten on high by some electric stroke ; 

While through the savage crew no whispered word, 
Or hurried step, the breathless silence broke : 

But each, with shrinking aspect, eyed the rest, 

As if some secret sin his soul oppressed. 

XV. 

But he to whom the headsman's evil lot 
Had fallen, still his fearful work delayed, 

And stood as one arrested near the spot 

Where he had some confiding friend betrayed, — 

One whose unquiet ghost in piteous plight 

Now slowly rose to his bewildered sight. 



A TALE OF THE SEA. 91 



Amid the ring, he whose commanding air 
And eye of sternness well bespoke him chief, 

Rushed to the child so statue-like and ftiir — 
'Twas not to save or proffer short relief, 

But cast into the sea, ere conscious breath 

Might break this swoon, and give a pang to death. 

XVII. 

An idle pity ! — her pure soul had fled ; 

And as he, bending, raised her nerveless form 
Pale o'er his brawny arm, the drooping head 

Lay as a lily bowed beneath the storm ; 
While o'er her features fell the corsair's tear, 
As he consigned her to a watery bier. 

xvra. 

Perchance the glossy ringlet which the sea 
Yielded to our deep search, once lightly rolled 

O'er that fair brow — but this deep mystery 

Nor breeze, nor breaking wave, will e'er unfold: 

Yet ftincy still the flowing lock will trace 

To that once known and long-remembered fjice. 

XIX. 

And when the last great trump shall thrill the grave, 
And earth's unnumbered myriads reappear. 

She, too, will hear the summons, 'neath the wave 
That now in silence wraps her sunless bier ; 

And, coming forth, in timid meekness bowed, 

Unfold the tongueless secrets of her shroud. 



A TALE OF THE SEA. 



XX. 

How darkly changed this world since that first hour 
When o'er its brightness sung the morning stars ! 

Time, care, and death's dark footsteps had no power 
Upon its beauty : man, who madly mars 

His Maker's works, has swept it with a flood 

Of orphans' tears, and deluged it with blood. 



XXI. 

It has become a Golgotha, where lie 

The bleaching bones of nations ; — every wave 

Breaks on a shore of skulls — and every sigh 
The low wind murmurs forth, seems as it gave 

This mournful tribute, unconfined and deep 

To millions, for whom man has ceased to weep. 



It is a dim and shadowy sepulchre, 

In which the living and the dead become 

One common brotherhood — and yet the stir 
And sting of serpent-passion, and the lium 

Of jocund life, survive with but a breath 

Between this reckless revelry and death. 



XXIII. 

It is a rolling tomb, rumbling along 

In gloom and darkness through the shud'ring spheres, 
And filled with death and life, and wail and song, 

Laughter and agony, and jests and tears ; 
And — save its heartless mirth and ceaseless knell — 
Wearing a ghastly, glimmering type of hell ! 



A TALE OF THE SEA. 03 



VV^hen woman dies, 'tis as the silent leaf 

The forests drop — the boughs wave on the same — 

The dew-drops, nature's seeming tears of grief. 
The young Aurora dries with her first flame; 

While that poor leaf, where'er its grave may be, 

Lies unremembered in the wild-wood's glee. 



Thus perish all — except the honored few — 
The great in Arms, Religion, Letters, Art — 

The urns of those the tears of crowds bedew ; 
And yet that worth which fires the nation's heart, 

Beneath a mother's faithful culture grew — 

She held the bow from which the arrow flew. 



NOTES ON FRANCE AND ITALY. 



CHAPTER I. 

Hail to thee, blithe spirit I 

Bird tliou never wert, 
That from Heaven, or near it, 

Pourest thy full heart. 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 
Teach me half the gladness 

That thy brain must know, 
Such harmonious madness 

From my lips would flow, 
The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 

Shelley. 

CRUISING AFTER HIBERNATING ^NOTES OF THE LAST BIRD ^REMINISCENCE 

OF MARIA GRUDGE AGAINST THE LADY ABBESS FIRST DAY OUT HURRY- 

SKURRY IN CABIN AND WARD-ROOM THE WATCH-BOY ALOFT WE AN- 
CHOR IN TOULON THE SENTENCE OF QUARANTINE PRACTICAL ABSURDI- 
TY OF ITS REGULATIONS A HINT FOR RESTORATIONISTS THE ARSENAL 

OF TOULON NAVAL DISCIPLINE OF THE FRENCH SUBURBS OF THE CITY 

HYERES MASSILLON A NUT FOR SOCIALISTS INQUISITORS OF THE 

CUSTOM-HOUSE — OVERHAULING THE DEAD — A WILLING FAREWELL TO 
TOULON. 

The winter had passed, the time of the singing of 
birds had come, and the voice of the turtle was heard 
in the land ; when, as if obeying these awakening in- 
stincts of nature, we weighed our anchors in the frig- 
ate Constellation, from the safe bed in which they had 



0'-^ FRANCE AND FRENCHMEN. 

liave an opportunity of returning her ungrateful ef- 
frontery ; for if we drop anchor at Madeira on our 
return home, it may not be my fault if she has not 
one the less nun on whom to rivet the chain of her 
sanctimonious tyranny. 

The morning of our first day out was peculiarly 
brilliant and serene, promising us a quiet and pleas- 
ant passage ; but towards evening the wind chopped 
about directly in our teeth, and suddenly assumed 
the dark and formidable frown of a gale, obliging us 
to take in sail, and heaving against us a heavy head 
sea. 

It was not less diverting than melancholy to wit- 
ness the effect produced by the rolling and plunging 
of our ship. We had come out sleek as if born and 
cradled in a band-box ; not a bit of lint disfigured 
the coat or pantaloon ; not a soil dimmed the reflect- 
ing surface of the cravat; and tlie smooth corners of 
the shirt-collar, peering above the carefully adjusted 
stock, shot forward like the ears of a rabbit, listening 
to some rumpling sound ahead, when lo ! a saucy 
wave broke over our bow, sweeping the whole length 
of the ship, and all this starch and gloss went down 
just as I have seen the peck-feathers of an old family 
rooster, hieing from a drenching shower to his covert. 

Nor was the scene below less afflictive, for every 
thing that had not been previously secured, was now 
moving about, all hurry-skurry, some sliding along, 
but more tumbling round, ''like ambition o'erleaping 



THE WATCH-BOY ALOFT. 99 

itself." Mj air-port, bj some mistake, had been left 
oj^en : the sea had now made a tunnel of it ; and my 
state-room door being shut, mj wardrobe and library, 
and — horribile dictu — my manuscripts, also, were 
drifting about in a most disastrous and drowning 
condition. 

My only anxiety was to save the latter, forecasting 
how much would be irreparably lost to the world in 
their destruction ! I thought of the Alexandrian 
Library, and knowing water to be as fatal as fire, 
seized at once these invaluable treasures, but was not 
a little mortified and vexed in finding them the most 
light and buoyant^ things in my apartment : even the 
web of an unfortunate spider sunk at their side. 

'No serious disaster, however, happened to the ship ; 
but a watch-boy posted aloft fell sound asleep, even 
while the masts were sweeping through nearly half 
of a frightful circle. Oh, sleep — 

Wilt tbou upon the high and giddy mast 
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains 
In cradle of the rude, imperious surge, — 
And in the visitation of the winds, 
Who take the ruffian billows by the top, 
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them 
With deafening clamors in the slippery shrouds, — 
That with the burly, death itself awakes ; 
Canst thou, oh, partial sleep ! give thy repose 
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude. 
And in the calmest and most stillest night 
Deny it to a king ? 



100 FRANCE A2^D FRENCHMEN. 

The wind subsided the next morning, and on the 
evening of the day succeeding we anchored in Tou- 
lon. We were preparing to go on shore, when an 
officer, with a most grim, uncompromising visage, 
such as would befit a man whose business it was 
to announce the fatal sentence to condemned crimi- 
nals, approached our ship, and inquired where we 
were from, and, on being told, informed us that we 
must perform a quarantine of ten days. 

This was enough to upset the patience of a Job, 
or tip the equanimity of a Turk. We had merely 
come over from Mahon, a place perfectly healthy, 
and known to be so, and had on board at this time 
scarcely a case of even ordinary indisposition, cer- 
tainly nothhig more alarming, or contagious, than a 
toothache, or broken finger, and yet we were plunged 
into a quarantine as if w^e had come from some Gol- 
gotha, freighted with reeking skulls. 

But there is as little use in scolding now as there 
was in quarrelling then. Men who have the least 
reason for their conduct, are the last to be influenced 
by argument. We tested this truth still more thor- 
oughly on a subsequent 'occasion; our ship had come 
to Marseilles, and we had freely commimicated with 
the place ; after spending about a week in mingled 
concourse with its inhabitants, a party of us went 
over by land to Toulon, where it was well known 
who we were, and from whence we came : for not a 
mouse stirs in France without being narrowly watched ; 



ABSURDITIES OF QUARANTINE. 101 

and it is said that the appearance of a strange baboon 
on her Spanish frontier was once telegraphed to the 
Police at Paris, and a detachment of the gendarmery 
sent out to watch the motions of the ambiguous 
stranger. 

In the mean time our ship came round to this 
port, and was put in quarantine ! We appeared be- 
fore the magistrates of the Health Office, and told 
them that we were officers attached to the Constella- 
tion, and had left her at Marseilles freely communi- 
cating with the shore, and that we had ourselves 
come over uninterruptedly by land, bringing con- 
tagion in our own skirts if there was any. But the 
only reply was a shrug of the shoulder — a French- 
man's last and only resort when confounded in argu- 
ment ; and our ship had to perform her week's quar- 
antine, merely because the sanitary regulations of 
Marseilles had not exacted the penalty. We might 
laugh at such a farce as this were it not so excessively 
annoying that the most ludicrous, blundering incon- 
sistency, and otherwise burlesque and grotesque as- 
tuteness would fail to provoke a smile. 

I have now done with quarantines ; nor will I 
trouble the reader with the details of any more, 
though they should come thick and fast as the 
plagues of Egypt. I detest the whole system, and 
only wish that every species of moral wrong wore in 
my eyes an equally repulsive and abhorred aspect. 
1 wonder our universal Pestorationists, instead of 



102 FRANCE AND FRENCHMEN. 

transporting a spirit at once from a place of ntter 
pollution to one of immaculate purity, never thought 
of putting him in quarantine, not only as a further 
punishment, but as a salutary precaution on the part 
of Heaven ! It would have a greater check on me 
than any thing which now enters into their purgato- 
rial fiction ; and, I must say, of all fictions that ever 
yet insulted the common sense of mankind in the 
shape of a religious creed, I consider this the most 
unqualifiedly absurd. 

As if the companionship of devils and a com- 
munion with the damned, could fit a man for the fel- 
lowship of angels and of the " S2:)irits of just men 
made perfect !" As if the blasjjhemies of hell could 
attune his spirit to the seraphic harmonies of heaven ! 
Let him gather to himself all the sanctity, virtue, 
and meekness that ever was, or ever can, w^ithout a 
contradiction of terms, be acquired in that region of 
cursing, hate, and agony, it cannot fit him for heav- 
en, or by any conceivable possibility render him 
happy if admitted there. 

He would be a stranger among strangers ; abash- 
ed at his own conscious unfitness for the place, 
he would fain hide himself from the pure presence 
of the redeemed and holy. Heaven might shake 
with the swelling anthem of the blessed, but not 
a chord in his breast would vibrate : he would stand 
amid the transcendent glories of that upper world, 
lone and desolate as a tree scathed and riven by 



EOYAL AESENAL OF TOULON. 103 

liglitning, amid the living verdures of an earthly 
landscape. 

I have generally refrained from topics of a reli- 
gious nature, not from a want of interest in them, 
but for reasons which I shall assign, if need be, in 
another place. I do not seek an exemption on this 
or any other subject from a reasonable responsibility, 
or conceive that, because I am four thousand miles 
from home, I am any the less accountable to the 
religious and moral sense of the country where I Avas 
born, and where I hope to die. Nor will I, as some 
of the antagonists of religion have done, charge a 
masked battery, and engage another to fire it off 
when I am myself safely under the shelter of the 
grave. Infidelity has often been driven to this 
miserable shift, thus developing two of those quali- 
ties which most offensively disgrace and disfigure 
human nature — a deep, disingenuous malignity, and 
a skulking cowardice. 

We were now on shore in Toulon, casting about to 
see what it might contain worthy of the pains we 
had taken. The Arsenal has in effective operation 
all the intentions of its gigantic plan ; and exhibits a 
mass of waiting force, happily at present in a state 
of masterly inactivity, worthy of the interests which 
look to it for protection, and worthy, too, of its con- 
nection with the spot where Bonaparte first im- 
pressed the terrors of his genius on the astonislied 
forces of England. 



104 FRANCE AND FRENCHMEN. 

The Frencli excel in the model of their ships, in 
every thing which belongs to the science of naval 
architecture ; and if they could only fight a ship as 
well as they can build her, their flag would now be 
flying over many a deck that has passed to the 
hands of the stranger. Their failure lies not in a 
want of courage, but in the absence of that thorough, 
rigid, dove-tailed discipline which nearly divests the 
moral mechanism of a ship oiindividual volition. 

This surrender of private will and judgment is not 
so indispensable to success in an engagement on 
land ; for there a man hacks away more for himself: 
he has more scope for that shouting, cutting, and 
slashing enthusiasm, which in such a situation per- 
haps more than compensates for the absence of con- 
sentaneous, constrained action ; but which, on board 
a man-of-war, by the derangements it would intro- 
duce into the consecutive means whereby each gun 
is to be discharged, and each evolution of the ship 
effected, would, perhaps more than any thing else, 
contribute to her capture. - 

This is the reason why the French, who can con- 
quer on the land, are defeated at sea. The spirit 
which covers them with laurels in their military^ 
plunders them of their flag in their naval engage- 
ments. Divest an army composed of Frenchmen of 
that personal, private, reckless enthusiasm, which 
blindly mingles its own impulses with the national 
honor; which would rush with as little hesitancy 



BIRTH-PLACE OF MASSILLON. 1 Of) 



over the breast of a fallen friend as the body of a 
foe, and which cuts its own way to preferment and 
plunder, and you would deprive it of all its efficiency 
— you would take from it the very sinews of its 
strength — ^you would reduce it to an inert, impotent 
mass. 

The harbor of Toulon affords a quiet and safe an- 
chorage, while the sweeping lines of its shore swell 
into lofty and picturesque elevations. The town 
itself has a forbidding, heavy appearance given it by 
the dull character of its architecture, and the massive 
military works which render it impregnable. The 
streets are narrow and foul, but their darkness and 
dirt are relieved by a broad, brilliant quay, two or 
three comfortable hotels, the complaisant demeanor 
of the inhabitants, and, above all, by the sweet, re- 
freshing retreats which the adjacent country presents. 
Among the latter, Hyeres takes the precedence. It 
has, it is true, no antiquities to stir your imagination, 
although it used to be the spot from which pilgrims 
to the Holy Land took their departure ; but it is filled 
with ambrosial shade, and it contains, among other 
habitations, that in which Massillon was born ; he 
who stood like a warning angel in the voluptuous 
court of Louis the Fourteenth. Here, also, among 
more recent fabrics, stands the beautiful Chateau of 
Baron Stultz, one of the very few who ever earned a 
title of nobility by the dexterity and industry of the 
needle. 

5* 



106 FRANCE AND FRENCHoVIEN. 

Some affect to sneer at liis ribbons ; but I. do not 
see wliy a tailor has not as good a riglit to cut out a 
baronetcy with shears as a trooper with his sword ; 
for, of the two, it is vastly the more peaceable mode 
of getting a title : it does infinitely less injury to so- 
ciety, and, after all, displays more skill ; for it is 
much easier to put a sword through a man's body 
than to nicely fit a coat to his back. None of this 
partiality therefore ; let every man become a baron, 
a marquis, or a duke in his own way ; no longer con- 
fine these brilliant baubles to the successful sabre of 
a cut-throat, or the lineality of one incapable perhaps 
of understanding any thing else. 

We now returned on board ship, and with much 
less annoyance than some of us ex]3erienced in get- 
ting on shore ; for the agents of the custom-house 
here are extremely rigorous in the discharge of their 
inquisitorial trust. If a man has not an epaulet on 
his shoulder, or a cockade on his hat, even his pock- 
ets will hardly escape the dishonor of a search. 'Nor 
is the insj^ection always confined to the living ; it 
sometimes extends to the dead. We had occasion to 
bury one of our crew here, and as we came on shore 
to pay him this last sad ofiice, his cofiin was uncere- 
moniously opened to ascertain that it contained no 
contraband goods ! 

We always knew the French to be an extremely 
shrewd and inquisitive people, but we did not sup- 
pose they would ever carry their researches into the 



THE CUSTOM-HOUSE AND COFFIN. 107 

secrets of the grave. Ah, Death ! we have heard 
thee accused, by some, of being an inexorable tyrant 
— by others, of being an indiscriminate leveller ; but 
never before, by saint or savage, have we heard thee 
accused of being a smuggler ! And even if thou 
wert such, what couldst thou want of aught that our 
poor ship contained? Wast thou in quest of pea- 
jackets and tarpaulins ? But thy sailors never go on 
watch : each in his hammock still slumbers as he 
laid himself down. Or wast thou in need of charts 
and quadrants ? But thy ships never leave their 
moorings ; each rots down piecemeal in its own 
berth. Or was it thy desire to obtain Bibles and 
Hymn-books ? But there is no worshipping as- 
sembly in thy dominion, and the Preacher's voice is 
never heard there. 

Ah, Death ! thou art falsely suspected and basely 
dishonored by the Frenchman! — by him, too, who 
should ever regard thee with the most indulgent 
feelings ; for he has crowded millions of corses into 
thy domain. From the chilling snows of Russia to 
the burning sands of Egypt, he has sunk his victims 
into thy pale realm, thick as the quails that fell for 
food around the famishing tents of wandering Is- 
rael. 

I had intended to sketch a few of the most easily 
detected features in the domestic habits of the people 
of Toulon, but this affair of the coffin — which will be 
discredited by many, but which can be established 



108 FRANCE Ain) FKENCHMEN. 

by the oath of fifty witnesses— has so disaffected me 
with the place, I leave it without further comment. 
I only hope it may not be my mournful lot to die 
here, to be insulted in my shroud. The most deeply 
wounding and irreparable wrong, is that which 
falsely suspects the dying ; and the most mean and 
dishonorable distrust, is that which looks for selfish, 
sinister concealment beneath the simple obsequies of 
the dead. 

Man is a curious thing — a medley strange, 
Of all concordant and discordant things ; 

And wheresoe'er you meet him, 'mid the range 
Of cringing vassals or the court of kings, 

He is the same, excepting his exterior. 

Which marks his rank as menial or superior. 

One time we find him struggling after fame, 
Burning what poets call the midnight taper. 

And then we find him writhing 'neath the shame 
Of an exposure in a public pa]>er ; 

And lastly, peaking, prying, after pelf. 

Shrouded and hearsed, and buried in himself. 

And then he falls in love, a curious feeling, 

A kind of melancholy flow of soul, 
A soft sensation o'er his heart-strings stealing ; 

One which his sternest thoughts cannot control — 
A secret fountain gushing from his heart, 
Watering the flowers that round its being start. 



MYSTERIES OF A CALM. 109 



CHAPTER II. 

The helmsman steered, the ship moved od, 
Yet never a breeze up blew ; 
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes, 
Where they were wont to do ; 
Till noon we quietly sailed on, 
Yet never a breeze did breathe ; 
Slowly and smoothly went the ship, 
Moved onward from beneath. 

Rime of the Ancient Planner. 

MYSTERIOUS SAILING IN A CALM SPECULATIONS OF THE TARS — A CHARMED 

SHIP — THE COURSE OF TIME AN AUGURY OF ETERNITY THE WAY OF THE 

WISE MAN APPROACH TO GENOA THE CITY OF PALACES— BLIND MUSI- 
CIAN AND HIS DAUGHTER EFFECT UPON THE CREW THEIR NOBLE LIB- 
ERALITY MUSIC OF THE OPERA COMPARED THE CARLA FELICE FAN- 
TASTIC ARCHITECTURE AND ORNAMENTS IN CHURCHES PROTESTANTISM 

AND ROMANISM COMPARED AN EPISODE ON YOUNG DIVINES A SPRIGHT- 
LY BED-FELLOW PARISIAN FLEAS IN THE WALTZ TOUR THROUGH THE 

PALACES GLIMPSES OF THE PROPRIETORS — RIDDLES TO BE SOLVED. 

A SIGNAL-GUN from the Flag-Ship to get under way 
had been cheerfully and promptly obeyed, and we 
were now holding our course, as well as ships can 
that have no wind, from Toulon for Genoa. Yet, 
strange as it may seem, our ship that never won a 
laurel in a breeze, would now, in a dead calm, log 
several knots in each watch. This apparently cause- 
less advance was an inexplicable mystery then, and 



110 A CHARMED SHIP. 



is SO still ; some, indeed, ascribed it to an impercep- 
tible current, but, in that case, lying passive on lier 
element, slie would make no progress through tlie 
water, though she might change her relation to the 
coast. Some, who were perhaps more imaginative 
than philosophical, attributed it to the impulses of 
an aerial vein, or breath, too weak to produce any 
visible eifect on the sails, yet of sufficient strength to 
move the ship. 

The simple tar, who never puzzles himself with the 
intricate relations of cause and effect, declared that 
the shij) went ahead because it was in her so to do ; 
and, in truth, I was myself very much of his oj)inion. 
A ship is not like a man who gives a reason for his 
deportment ; she appears to be actuated by some ir- 
responsible whim, some self-consulting, independent 
caprice, that disregards the complexion of her out- 
ward condition. Under the urgencies of a quick 
breeze she will frequently lie almost motionless, and 
then, again, in a condition less favorable, as if moved 
by some impulse from within, she 

" walks the waters like a thing of life." 

I have ever believed our shij) to be undei some 
mysterious charm, since I saw her, without a breath 
of wind, move %ij[) in the middle of the Tagus, while 
two smaller vessels nearer each shore were movino* 
down at the same time ; and I was quite confirmed 
in this opinion when I saw her, in the utter silence 



AUGUKY FOR ETERNITY. Ill 

and dim solemnity of a midnight-watch — the ocean 
lying still as the slumber of the grave — move three 
times around in the same fearful circle, leaving the 
gaping track of her keel as entire and unclosed as if 
the waters had lost their returning power, or had been 
converted, by the dark magic of her drifting shadow, 
into substance. 

Those may smile who will, at this belief in a ship's 
subtle, innate source of motion ; but I can assure 
them it is not more irrational and absurd than the 
forms of belief on which one-half mankind rest their 
ho]3es of heaven. I would much sooner believe that 
a ship may establish a character for good sailing in 
a dead calm, than that a man, who has been acting 
the devil to the verge of human life, can then, as if 
by the force of an upward glance, be transformed 
into an angel. 

You may as well believe that a stream can move on 
half-way to the ocean, a current of putrid blackness, 
and then flow the rest in liquid transparency, as to 
suppose that the current of our moral being, which 
has flowed darkly and corruptedly to the edge of the 
grave, can then move on in j)urity and brightness. 
As it rolled upon earth, we must expect it to roll 
through eternity ! 

I little thought my wizard theme would lead me into 
a topic of such real moment. But let those who may 
justly question its relevancy ponder the truth it con- 
tains : it is never too soon to forsake an error — it may 



112 ITALY AJ^D THE ITALIANS. 

be too late to retrieve it. The wisest man is he who 
leaves in his conduct through life the least room for 
subsequent regret and sorrow. I would blot these 
lines as irrelevant, did they not spring from the deep- 
est fount of my convictions. But I know they in- 
volve truths that will affect both reader and writer 
when the fleeting interests of this life appear only as 
the phantoms of a troubled dream ; and when many 
of the objects that may have most enchanted us here, 
have only that remembrance which must be bathed 
in our tears. We are born under a cloud, but the 
light that melts through it, is sufficient to guide our 
hesitating steps. 

We were now within a few leagues of Genoa, as 
appeared from our dead-reckoning, which was kept 
as accurately as any such precarious calculation could 
be amid conflicting currents and calms — for we had 
no meridian sun to designate our position, or promi- 
nent cliff" to inform us of our bearings and distances. 
These had been lost us in the opaqueness of a thick 
stagnant atmosphere. We were, of course, rather sad 
at the thought of approaching the " City of Palaces," 
and from the sea, too, under circumstances so ex- 
tremely unfavorable. 

But, to our most pleasurable sur23rise, towards 
evening a strong wind, rushing from the icy region 
of the Alps, rolled one bank of clouds against another 
till the whole departed, leaving Genoa without an 
obscuring veil upon its beauty and grandeur. It 



THE CITY OF PALACES. 113 

stood there proudly ascending a circling acclivity of 
the Apennines : the setting sun shedding upon it the 
effulgence of its liberated beams, the greeting birds 
breaking into sudden song, and the green trees waving 
their fresh leaves over tower, terrace, and gayer 
balcony. 

I thought when sailing up the Bay of Naples it 
would be impossible for any other city or shore to 
make my heart beat so quickly, but here I found 
emotions within me, though less deep and dilated, 
yet equally replete with delight. There was, indeed, 
no burning mount, with its cataract of fire, to create 
awe — no disinhumed remains of perished greatness 
to awaken a bewildering reverence ; but then here 
were castled steeps, frowning as of old, to impress 
respect ; long ranges of marble palaces, whose builders 
are in the grave, to excite admiring wonder ; and a 
lofty background, sprinkled with villas, to inspire a 
sentiment of security and quietude, and which seemed 
as a shield cast over the architectural magnificence 
of the spot. 

Such appeared Genoa as we first saw it from the 
sea ; a nearer view may chasten the tone of enthusi- 
astic admiration which its first impressions have 
awakened. The most enchanting beauty can rarely 
stand the test of the thoroughly informed eye, and I 
have never met with a city without a deformity in 
many of its features. 

Our anchor had scarcely been let go, when an old man 



lli ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 

and his daughter came alongside, and solicited permis- 
sion to come on board, which was cheerfully granted. 
The father was blind, and had found a partial refuge 
from the affliction in the music of his violin. The 
daughter was young, of a childlike bearing, and ac- 
companied the touching strains of the parent with a 
voice of expressive sweetness : 

" And she began a long, low island song, 
Of ancient days, ere tyranny grew strong." 

The crew gathered around in close, wordless audi- 
ence, as if she had been some sweet seraj)h delegated 
for some inspiring purpose to breathe here, for a short 
time, the melodies of a haj^pier sphere. But as she 
was not an angel, and of course not exempt from the 
wants which betide humanity, our crew began to cast 
about how they might best relieve the bereavements 
of her condition. 

They pronounced it an impropriety, bordering on 
shame, that one so young, so beautiful, and who could 
sing so sweetly, should be left to want any of the good 
things of this life ; and immediately raised a sub- 
scription sufficient to afford an ample com|)etence, 
for many months to come, to her and her blind father. 
As she floated oft' in her light skift' towards the shore, 
with a purse in hand containing two hundred dollars 
in gold, the sailors watched her as they would had 
she been a sweet cherub that had just dropped out of 
heaven. 



SAILORS AND SINGING GIRL. 115 

There is no being in the world so easily moved to 
acts of charity as a sailor ; he will share his last 
jDennj, not only with a needy shipmate, but with a. 
stranger, with a person he never met before, and 
never expects to meet again. Almost any amount 
of money, exceeding, perhaps, that due the individual 
members of the crew, might be raised on board one 
of our ships, in behalf of a plain, simple object of 
charity. 

It is necessary, on such occasions, to limit them to 
a certain sum, otherwise but few would return home 
with a shilling in their pockets. Though, in truth, 
this would but little affect their pecuniary condition 
three weeks after -having reached the shore, this being 
usually a longer time than is necessary for the sailor 
to rid himself of all his wages for three years of hard- 
ship and peril. 

Those of us who fancied in ourselves a passion for 
music of a higher pretension than what flowed from 
the lips of the little girl, went on shore to the Carla 
Felice, where we heard Madam Unguer, in Anna 
Boleyna — an opera in which she displays the full 
force of her astonishing powers. Her genius is adapted 
to the wild, turbulent, and tragical incidents of life ; 
she expressed the love, indignation, despair, and con- 
scious innocence of Henry's wife, with a power and 
pathos that reached every heart. Each motion, look, 
and tone, betrayed the grief, anger, and forgiveness 
of the roval victim. 



IIG ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 

ISTot the sight of the execrable axe in the Tower of 
London, with which she was beheaded, affected me 
half so deeply. The one produced a dark revulsion 
of feeling, the other filled me with a living sym^pathy ; 
the one disposed me to execration, the other to tears. 
JSTo man, it appears to me, can listen to this opera, 
sustained in all its parts with the ability it was this 
night, without imbibing a fi^esh reverence for virtue, 
and a deeper detestation of vice. 

Carla Felice, as an edifice, reflects credit on the 
present taste of the Genoese. It is rich and stately, 
and free of the meretricious ornaments which disfigure 
their earlier architecture. The arrangements and or- 
naments of the interior are elegant and chaste, while 
many of the stage decorations are truly superb. In 
finishing and famishing a theatre, there is usually a 
wide departure from the simplicity of good taste. It 
would seem as if some reeling vision of delight had 
dazzled and confounded the judgment of the artist, 
and he heaps one ornament upon another till the 
beauty of the original design is lost in a maze of 
gilding and false devices. 

Nor does the Sanctuary, with all its high and sa- 
cred associations, often escape entirely the effects of 
tliis frivolous, fantastic spirit. Not only are tlie 
churches in Genoa, and in Catholic communities 
generally, scandalized in this form, but they seldom 
escape where they have been reared and consecrated 
by the iconoclastic spirit of Protestantism. 



A SPRIGHTLY BED-FELLOW. 117 

You will sometimes find, even in a Methodist 
iiieeting-house, where the seats have scarcely the 
comfort of a back, a red velvet cushion on the pulpit, 
with its showy embroidery, long fringe and prodigal 
tassels, falling far down over the many colored panels : 
all the work of aspiring young ladies, who it would 
seem had hit upon this mode of displaying, to the 
best advantage, their handicraft, in the hope, perhaps, 
that it may attract the eye of the young expounder, 
or of some one else in want of a quiet, industrious, 
and excellent wife. 

What a pity our sprigs of divinity lose, as they usu- 
ally do, all the advantage to be derived from these 
unerring intimations, by getting a wife before they get 
a pulpit ; or, what is worse, by entering into engage- 
ments, which, by the way, they sometimes break, 
and without any other provocation than the superior 
attractions of another ; a breach of trust for which 
they ought to be broken themselves. If one of them 
ever enters the pulpit of a church where I am, though 
my seat should be in the upper gallery, I would get 
out of the building, if I had to let myself down by the 
lightning-rod. 

Enough of this. At the close of the opera, we 
went and took rooms at the Hotel de Yille, one of the 
many excellent establishments of the kind to be met 
with in Genoa. Here you have nothing to annoy 
you, save at night, a little fellow, who springs from 
his covert Avith an uncertainty and ubiquity of mo- 



lis ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 



tion whicli the most dexterous politician, in all Lis 
shifts for office, can never surpass. He is more sub- 
tle than the mosquito, who foolishly sounds his little 
horn at his approach ; for the only warning he gives 
is in the injury he inflicts ; and, if you attack him, he 
is off at some other point, where perhaps he was least 
expected, till, at last, wearied with this unavailing 
warfare, you resign yourself unconditionally to his 
malice. Pity he has none, since the most tender of 
the other sex are most thoroughly his victims. 

Still, there is something to admire about this little 
fellow : his selection of Italy as the favorite place of 
his abode, his choice of the ladies in his piratical ad- 
ventures, and the soft hour of night in which he 
moves, are all indications of a refined taste and an 
exquisite classic turn. At Paris they treat him with 
a rudeness utterly at variance with the urbanity 
which we are accustomed to accord to this most 
polite people. 

We saw four of them there harnessed into a car- 
riage, which they rolled about with a quick, well- 
regulated step ; others were dancing a quadrille, in 
which they balanced and exchanged partners with 
the most unexceptionable ease and grace. The waltz 
appeared to make them giddy, or perhaps its want of 
delicacy offended them ; for they never could be 
coaxed or compelled to excel in it. Others still, who 
had been less favored of nature, were on a treadmill, 
where, step by step, upon the ever deceiving wlie< ^ 



TOUR THROUGH THE PALACES. 119 

tlicy were compelled to turn a complication of ma- 
clunerj which none but French ingenuity could ever 
have adapted to the energies of a flea ! 

The next morning, taking with us a cicerone, who 
was rather an honorable exception to the usual char- 
acteristics of his frail fraternity, we sallied forth on 
a tour of palaces — an occupation in which we were 
agreeably entertained for several days. These ad- 
mired edifices, though rarely constructed of the most 
precious material, and often disparaged by architect- 
ural imitations painted on the fa9ade, are yet not de- 
ficient in solidity and grandeur. 

The spacious court around which the whole is 
built, w^ith its marble porticoes tow^ering up through 
the centre of the vast pile, — the broad marble steps 
on which you ascend to the different lofts, — the mar- 
ble balconies from w^hich you survey the busy streets 
below, — the lofty terrace, waving wath the orange, 
oleander, and lemon, that here strike their roots deep 
and strong in a soil sustained by spreading arches, 
and refreshed with the play of sparkling fountains, — 
the magnificent saloons, with their floors of smooth 
and beautifully stained mastic, and arched ceilings, 
covered with classic frescoes, and the walls, hung with 
tapestries, mirrors, and gold, or adorned with the 
still richer triumphs of art, — all excite an admira- 
tion w^hich, if not unqualified, is yet deep and en- 
durino*. 

o 

These princely mansions are not only to be found 



120 ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 

sep^irately in different sections of the city, but they 
border three of the principal streets so continuously, 
that scarce an intervening object occurs to break the 
overpowering impression. Captious criticism may 
indeed find in their architecture faults sufficient to 
stir its supercilious vanity and spleen, but to one 
v\'lio forgets minor defects in prevailing excellencies, 
they will ever be objects of genuine admiration. 

The proprietor of such a princely mansion is often 
encountered by the visitor gliding softly through the 
apartments, and presenting, in his dress and person, 
an evidence of abstemiousness and simplicity that 
would more appro]3r lately become the cell of an an- 
chorite. His incurious look leads you to regard him 
as some poor stranger incapable of appreciating the 
objects of art around him, or as some dreaming en- 
thusiast whose thoughts have run on more exalted 
and subtle themes, till he has ceased to be affected 
by these tangible forms of magnificence and beauty. 

Yet, before you have finished this comment, you 
will find him perhaps suddenly pausing before some 
half perished painting, which to you is little more 
than a blank, and with steadfast look prying into its 
dim shadows, as if he were penetrating the mysteries 
of death. Would that he could penetrate the reali- 
ties of that untried change, and bring forth its moral 
map ! 

But the secrets of the shroud lie beyond the men- 
tal reach of man. What we were, before embodied 



MYSTEIUES OF THE FUTURE. 121 



in this breath iiig world, and what we are to become 
Avhen we pass out of it, are to him alike unknown. 
Life, death, the past, and the future, are all a deep 
and solemn mystery : yet we are gay as if we knew 
from whence we came, and whither we are going. 
We are but bubbles which the stream of time bears 
on its ruffled breast to the ingulfing ocean of eter- 
nity. 

Like bubbles on a sea of matter borne, 
We rise, we break, and to that sea return. 

6 



122 ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 



CHAPTER III. 

Hark to the bell, from convent turret pealing ! 

Its mellow music fills the balmy air ; 
Meekly around the white-robed altar kneeling, 

The vestal virgins hymn their matin prayer : 
Their pure devotions breathe again on earth 
The sacred charm that hovered 'round its birth. 

GKNOA AND THE GENOESE A REUNION BY MOONLIGHT THE SUICIDe's 

BRIDGE THE DOME OF CARIGNANO THE ALTAR OF HOPE RELUC- 
TANT CONFESSIONS CHAPEL OF JOHN THE BAPTIST OANOVA's GRIEF, 

HOPE, AND FAITH RAPHAEL'S ST. STEPHEN PAINTINGS OF RUBENS 

AND GUIDO CHAPEL OF THE CARMELITES SALOON OF THE SERRA 

PALACE PAINTING OF CARLO DOLCI ASYLUM FOR MUTES THE 

GIRLS OF GENOA THE MAGDALEN OF PAUL VERONESE THE BUST 

OF COLUMBUS THE PAST AND THE PRESENT OF GENOA ASPIRA- 
TIONS OF HOPE FOR THE FUTURE. 

The streets of Genoa, with a few splendid ex- 
ceptions, are extremely narrow ; and their confined 
alley-like character is rendered seemingly still more 
restricted by the attitude of the buildings. You look 
up from the pavement as from the bottom of some 
deep chasm, and discover, with a feeling bordering 
on insecurity, the elevation of the aperture communi- 
cating with the blue sky, but you quite des]jair of 
reaching that place of freer resph-ation, except by 
some ladder little less in height than the one which 
rose on the Patriarch's dream ! 



MEETING BY MOONLIGHT. 123 

You occasionally discover an arch thrown across 
from the balcony of one dwelling to another, though 
a youth of elastic limb would hardly need that giddy 
bridge to aid his transit, especially if winged by the 
impatient hope of meeting there the Medora of his 
heart. The spot itself may sometimes be the mutual 
refuge or resting-place of affection ; for I once saw 
on one of these, at the dead of night, between me 
and the moon, two clasping forms, so light, distinct, 
and soft in outline, you would have said the grave 
had given up the most beautiful of its tenants — or 
that two embodied 'spirits had stepped from their 
wandering cloud to linger there in admiration of the 
splendor and silence which reigned over the sleeping 
life of the city. 

But these slight arches, trod by love, are far less 
lofty than one connecting two more substantial ele- 
vations within the precincts of the town. This 
springs bold and free over the tops of buildings, high 
enough of themselves to dwindle the jostling crowd 
of the street into dwarfs. From this the ruined in 
fortune and the broken in hope, frequently cast 
themselves down, ending at once life and its press- 
ing sorrows. This fatal step would less deserve our 
criminating rebuke, could they in that fall "leap the 
life to come ;" but they only pass to the fearful reali- 
ties of that existence from which, even in the ut- 
most depths of the future, there is no escape to be 
found. 



124 ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 

Yet, I never stopped at the forsaken grave of a 
poor suicide without feeling more inclined to tears 
than maledictions. The bitterness of disappoint- 
ment, the weight of anguish, and the wear and fever 
of the heart that can in themselves reconcile a man 
to death, and make him consent to become his own 
executioner, must have an energy which none but 
those who have some time or other partially har- 
bored the frightful purpose, can fully comprehend. 
AYhat man of intellect and sensibility could rail at 
the grave of the author of Lacon ? Even merited 
reproach falters at a recollection of his transcendent 
powers, and erring charity veils the terrors of his 
suicidal guilt. But in times like these, when this 
species of crime is becoming fearfully frequent, I 
connnend to my thinking reader the Suicide's Argu- 
ment, and Nature's Answer — by Coleridge : 

Ere the birth of my life, if I wished it or no, 
No question was asked me — it could not be so ! 
If the Hfe was the question, a thing sent to try, 
And to Uve on be yes ; what can no be ? — " To die." 

nature's answer. 

Is't returned as 'twas sent ? Is't no worse for the wear ? 

Think first, what you are ! Call to mind what you were ! 

I gave you innocence, I gave you hope, 

Gave health, and genius, and an ample scope. 

Return you me guilt, lethargy, despair ? 

Make out the invent' ry ; inspect, compare ! 

Thtiii die — if die vou dare ! 



RELUCTANT CONFESSIONS. 125 

K^ear this bridge of death — as if to lure the de- 
spairing to the light and promises of a better hope — 
stands the beautiful churcli of Carignano. A dome 
of graceful spring lets in the soft light upon the wor- 
shipper, as he kneels in the low nave amid the 
breathing statues of those who, like him, have 
meekly wrestled with their lot. He feels there not 
utterly forsaken in his sorrows ; around him are 
those who once wept, trusted, and triumphed. There, 
too, is the sweet face of hek whose all-pitying look 
sheds encouragement over the broken heart of the 
penitent — and there, too, is the boundless compassion 
of Him whose merits and mercy are the refuge of a 
ruined world. 

To this altar let 7ne come ; but, alas ! I haye no 
offerings to bring, except the blighted remains of be- 
trayed purposes, and violated vows : these bathed in 
tears I lay down with a blush of contrition and shame. 
May the strength of higher and holier resolves brace 
me to the responsibilities which gather wide and 
deep over this deathless soul. I have slumbered too 
long : the fresh hours of the morning have all passed 
from the dial of my life ; the index has reached the 
meridian, and nothing yet has been attempted worthy 
of myself, or the duty I owe my God and my fellow- 
men. 

Awake, my heart ! though pulseless, prostrate, and 
cold, yet awake ! The bent reeds where the tempest 
hath been, have come up ; and the fettered earth on 



120 ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 

which the winter had cast its icy chain, has opened 
into blossoms and song, but thon, like one on whom 
the grave hath closed, stirrest not ! Awake ! rise in 
thy rallied life and strength, if it be but to struggle, 
to bleed, and die ! 

Although these confessions and self-reproaches flow 
all unbidden from m}^ inmost heart, yet I must turn 
to that in which the reader can find a more pleasing 
interest. Leaving the statues which adorn the nave 
of Carignano, and which are the work of Puget — the 
Michael Angelo of France — we went to the Cathedral, 
which derives its interest less from its architectural 
pretensions, than its venerable age. The exterior is 
cased with alternate layers of white and black marble, 
distinct, and strongly marked as the American and 
the sable sons of Africa, whom oppression and crime 
have chained to our soil. 

In one of the chapels dedicated to John the Bap- 
tist, we were shown the iron urn believed by many 
to contain the ashes of that forerunner of Christ. As 
this pioneer was sacrificed to the whim of a frivolous 
female, none of her sex are allowed to approach his 
shrine. We found here, also, the celebrated emerald 
vase, reputed to have been presented by the Queen of 
Sheba to Solomon, and taken at Cesarea by the band- 
ed hosts that went out to rescue the Holy Sepulchre. 
I cannot but half regret that the recent tests of skep- 
tical science have decided this splendid trophy to be 
only a composition of polished glass ! Life itself is 



127 



a delusion, and why break the bubbles that float on 
its breath ! 

A monumental group in this church struck me as 
one of the most delicate and pleasing efforts of Cano- 
va's genius. Grief, in the likeness of a weeping angel, 
looks down with tender resignation on the tomb, while 
Hope, in the earnestness of an unfaltering faith, looJvS 
up to that anchor which Faith hath cast within the 
veil, l^ever before, or since, has death to me been 
SO disarmed of its terrors. 

Say what w^e will against the visible representation 
of sj)iritual existences, they affect us the most deeply 
in this form. In the one we have shape, substance, 
sympathy ; in the other, only a vague, intangible, 
ideal conception, that addresses itself to no outward 
sense. Think you, that the multitude would linger 
so around that statue which enchants the heart, if 
there were nothing there but the invisible creation of 
mind ? I think not ; and hence it is that the Catho- 
lic faith, with its striking palpable symbols, danger- 
ous, and to be deprecated as some of them are, will 
ever take precedence with those who are influenced 
more by their outward senses, than their abstract 
convictions. 

The church of St. Stephen derives its leading in- 
terest from a representation of that first martyr, by 
Kaphael, as he bows himself, with the forgiving spirit 
of his master, to the malice of his mnrderers. His 
very look of innocence and meekness w^ere enough, 



128 ITALY AND TIIE ITALIANS. 

one would suppose, to disarm the most savage breast 
of its hatred. But man, when he persecutes in the 
name of religion, seems the more steeled to all the 
kindlier impulses of his nature. He lights his pro- 
fane brand at the altar of Heaven, and then kindles 
up a conflagration at which Hell might shudder. 

The church of the Annunziata is splendid in its 
marbles, but frightful in the malefactor of Corloni — 
broken on the wheel ; while the Ambragia, of less 
ambition in design and richness in ornaments, has 
the milder and deeper attractions derived from the 
life-imparting pencils of Rubens and Guido. 

But of all the sanctuaries here, none charmed me 
more than the chapel of the Carmelite nuns. This 
is small, simple, chaste, and in harmony with the 
noiseless habits of those who here enshrine their timid 
hopes of immortality. Would that she were here 
who weeps within the walls of Santa Clara ; here to 
kneel and hymn her vesper prayer, and then, with 
the wings of a dove, to fly away and be at rest. Into 
whatever quarter of the heaven she might j)ass, I 
should watch her flight as one that would pursue. 
But, ah ! Maria, though the wing of the turtle-dove 
were lent thee, and a pinion granted me of equal 
fleetness, yet whither could we fly ? Where escape 
from the all-shadowing Upas of sin and evil that 
blights this earth ? 

There is no isle, in the most sunny clime, that sor- 
row hath not touched ; no shore on the remotest sea. 



SALOON OF THE SERRA PALACE. 129 

wliere Death liatli not his empire. The pall, the 
plume, and the sable hearse move from every point 
of this globe to that shadowy realm, where the 
mourner soon becomes the mourned. 

Thou strikest down the monai-ch in his hall, 
And leavest not the courtiei* at his side ; 

Thou minglest with the dance at marriage-ball, 
And carriest off the bridegroom and the bride ; 

Thou hear'st the home-returning sailor call 

To her he loves, then dash'st him in the tide — 

The brave and young, the beautiful and gay, 

The •' shining mark" thou ever bear'st away. 

We will then, sw^eet one, build our altar to Hope, 
and earnestly look for that promised land, where 
tears and farewells are unknown ; where the counte- 
nance of the dw^eller is ever filled with perfect light ; 
where the unwithered and uncrushed flowers still 
breathe their fragrant homage ; and where the rich 
harp-string mingles its music with the voice of the 
Eiver of the Water of Life, that floAVS 

" Fast by the oracle of God." 

Could any thing tempt our thoughts back from the 
excursions of Hope to this earth, and the brilliant 
vanity of its cities, it might be the splendors of a 
saloon in the Serra palace of Genoa. Here, walls 
and columns covered with mirror and gold, a floor of 
tesselated marbles, and tables of richest mosaic, fasci- 
nate the eye ; and you at first lialf conceive yourself 

0'" 



130 ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 

realizing the gorgeous fictions of some oriental dream : 
and you begin to forget the poverty, strife, and 
wretchedness which disfigure the condition of man. 

But there is one painting, among the many which 
adorn the costly galleries of this mansion, which 
brings you back to the painful reality; it is from the 
vivid pencil of Carlo Dolci, and represents that scene 
in the garden of Gethsemane in which holy Inno- 
cence, amid the sorrow and dismay of our shrinking 
nature, resigned itself to the agonies and ignominy of 
the cross ! He that can gaze on this scene, and feel 
no emotions of grief and reverence, must have a heart 
that pity cannot touch, or Heaven forgive ! 

I could take the reader to other princely edifices, 
to the unrivalled paintings which adorn them, the 
statues and marbles which heighten their claims to 
admiration, for no city in the world is so rich in 
palaces as Genoa. But there is one feature of this 
city which must not be passed unnoticed ; it is the 
provision which has been made by individual wealth 
for the relief of the unfortunate and poor. 

Here the deaf and dumb are taught to communicate 
their feelings, and catch the meaning of others, without 
the aid of an articulate language ; here the aged whom 
the turning tide of fortune has left wrecked on the 
shore, find a simple, but generous asylum ; here the 
orphan-boy is furnished the means of procuring a 
present subsistence, and of acquiring a knowledge 
that may subserve his after years ; and here the little 



ASYLUM FOR DEAF MUTES. 131 

girl, who has no mother and no home, may find a 
cheerful refuge, where she may braid her flowers, 
receive the avails of her work, and at a becoming age, 
perhaps, make another happy with her beauty and 
timid worth. These are the benefactions of the more 
wealthy citizens of Genoa, and bespeak virtues that 
will be revered, when the usual forms in which wealth 
expresses itself will be remembered only to be pitied 
and despised. 

We were cautioned, in coming here, not to go in 
our purchases beyond the assurances of our own know- 
ledge, and we at first hesitated distrustingly over the 
genuineness of a string of coral beads, those little 
gifts which one gets abroad for an infant sister, a 
lisping niece, or one deeper in the vale of years, and 
perhaps, scarcely capable of receiving them without 
a surrender of the heart. But in all the purchases 
we made — and they were many, and some of no in- 
considerable value — I heard no complaints of the Li- 
gurian fraud. The jewelled watch that exhausted 
my little purse, has proved as true to the promise of 
its vender, as a steed to the word of a Turk. I wish 
I were as regular in my habits as this is in its hom's ; 
and as true to my real interests as this is to the sun. 
But I am not ; neither can you be : but were it as 
easy for us to correct our faults, as it is to detect 
them, virtue would lose the merit she now derives 
from the conflict. It is the hardest of substances that 
polish the steel the brightest. 



132 ITALY A^"D THE ITALIANS. 



The Genoese, especially the young women, are re- 
markably neat in their person; even those in the 
humblest condition seldom offend you in a negligence 
of dress. The kerchief that protects the bosom may 
have been rent, but it has been repaired ; and its 
snowy whiteness blushes back the living carnation of 
her cheek. The stocking may betray the frequent 
efforts of the needle, but it sets snugly to the round 
instep, and there is nothing else there to make you 
wish the a-entle w^earer had forded one of her moun- 



tain streams. 



The daughter of the simple gardener, as she sits at 
market by the side of her little vegetable store, seems 
to have caught her conceptions of propriety from the 
violets of her parterre ; and the blooming girl of 
Recco understands how to give an additional attrac- 
tion to a smooth orange, or a cluster of grapes ; for 
she comes in her blue silk bodice, her rose-colored 
petticoat, her Maltese cross of gold, with her hair 
fancifully braided, rolled up, and interlaced with 
flowers, where the tuberose and the pomegranate 
blossom, and sprigs of rich jasmine in their mingled 
beauty and fragrance, are not more captivating than 
the bright smile which plays over her sweet face. 

"Who would not purchase of such a one ! I could 
not pass her by, though her osier basket held only 
the perished fruits of some blighted tree. I have 
ever observed that he who solicits charity for another, 
ur essays to sell what is liis own, is uiost successful 



MAGDALEN OF PAUL VERONESE. 133 

when he rather stirs our admiration than pity. Emo- 
tions which flow from objects, in themselves agree- 
able, are ever more welcome guests at the heart, than 
those which come to claim om* compassion ; and 
hence it is that rich men, dying heirless, oftener Ije- 
queath their property to the wealthy than the poor. 
What a miserable thing, after all, is human nature ! 
But I am moralizing again without knowing it. Can 
a stream leave the spring and not carry with it the 
properties of its fountain ? 

We could not leave Genoa without a farewell visit 
to the Mary Magdalen of Paul Veronese, in the Regal 
Palace. This truly feminine being is here represented 
as in the house of the Pharisee, at the feet of our 
Saviour, and so full of life and tender force is each 
limb and feature, that your feelings, unperceived by 
yourself, begin to flood your eyes. Her attitude so 
meek and devoted ; her long and flowing locks of 
gold, concealing more of her face than her emotions ; 
that timid hand half failing in its ofiice, that look 
of grief and love, and those tears as they swim and 
fall, make you feel that there is a tenderness and 
sweetness in piety, which nothing can surpass or 
supply in the female heart. 

We have been to the palace of the Doges, but there 
is only enough there to make you grieve for what is 
gone. The great Council Chamber, with its lofty 
ceiling of Yenice-frescoes, and its stately columns of 
beautiful Brocatello, remains, but the statues which 



13-1: ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 



once adorned it have departed, and their place has 
been supplied by such representations as plaster and 
a fault-concealing drapery can bring. These men of 
clay and ruffles, standing so astutely in this hall of 
legislative wisdom, reminded me of those members 
of our Congress unconditionally instructed by their 
constituents ! 

But there is one thing here to which an American 
heart can never be wholly dead : it is a marble bust 
of Columbus ; and there are also three letters ad- 
dressed to citizens of Genoa, in his own hand-writing. 
These memorials reconciled us to the desolate sensa- 
tions of the spot ; they brought back, with flashing 
power, the virtues and trials, the triumphs and suffer- 
ings of one to whom the North owes its greatest debt 
of gratitude ; and who sunk to his last rest in dis- 
trust, desertion, and chains. 

But it is not for me to dress his bier, nor will I 
presumptively cast a flower into that fragrant and 
imperishable garland, that "Washington Irving has 
woven on his grave. Yirtue may be misrepresented, 
persecuted, and consigned to the shroud, but the 
righteous wake not more assuredly to the reality of 
their hopes, than this to an immortal remembrance. 

The reader must not suppose that every thing in 
Genoa wore to my eye so much of the couleur de rose 
as I may at first seem to intimate. I might have 
darkly shaded some features of this picture, without 
being unjust to the original ; but my first glance of 

4 



Genoa's past and present. 185 

the place from the sea disarmed me, and I was like 
a painter sketching the face of the one he loves. I 
might with truth have brought out into mournful 
prominence the ignorance of the great mass, their 
delusive confidence in the pageantries of their re- 
ligion, their easily disruptured connection with a 
virtuous life, the jealousies and feuds which trouble 
their social relations, the absence of sufficient en- 
couragement to enterprise and industry in their civil 
condition, the spirit of discontent which poisons their 
peace, and, above all, the hated and massive des- 
potism that grinds them to the earth. 

The lingering forms of her freedom have at length 
departed : her Doges are in the grave ; her commerce 
has fled from the ocean ; Egypt and Palestine, Asia 
Minor and Thrace, the Mediterranean and Levant, 
with the thousand bright isles that gem those waters, 
where she was once respected and obeyed, now know 
her no more. Even Venice, her ancient rival, has 
ceased to dream of her worth. To all the East she is — 
what are now the thousands that once went from her 
bosom to perish in the Holy Land — a phantom of 
perished power. 

But a better day may yet dawn on Genoa : she is 
not yet the ruined votary of vice, or the crouching 
and creeping slave of tyranny. Another Doria, like 
her first, may yet arise to rally her scattered and 
dismayed strength, to break the iron that eats into 
her soul, to send the malignant despot that rivets her 



136 ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 

chain back to his petty isle ; and, sustained by the 
slanting vigor of fraternal cities, she may yet grapple 
with the force of Austrian interference, and with 
indignant energy hurl back the broken links of her 
fetters into the very teeth of that Moloch of despotism. 
May this day come — may these eyes see it ; and, 
lovely Genoa, were not the proffer beneath thy pride, 
here is a heart and hand for thee ! Strike for free- 
dom and for self-respect, for the greatness lost and 
the gifts that remain ! Thousands mourn thy slum- 
ber, and the spirits of thy Fathers sj^eak to thee from 
the grave ! 

Sons of the mighty dead, why are ye weeping 

Your hearts away in unavailing woe ? 
Nature is bright and gay, as she were keeping 

A festival in heaven's seraphic glow ; 
But ye are sad — alas ! those dirges sweeping 

That plaintive Lyre — so mournfully and low — 
That Lyre that Harold's magic fingers strung — 
Too soon in sadness on the cypress hung. 

There it shall breathe its melancholy lay, 

In memory of him, whose soul of fire 
Gleamed through its tenement of heated clay.. 

Kindling and glowing down each tuneful wire, 
Till heart — soul — feeling — passion's wildest play, 

Seemed as existent only in his Lyre. 
Love — Freedom — Glory were his theme. Oh! when, 
If ever, will such numbers wake again ! 



FAKEWELL TO GENOA. 13' 



CHAPTER IV. 

" Oh, Italy ! how beautiful thou art ! 
Yet I could weep — for thou, alas, art lying 
Low in the dust ; and they who come, admire thee, 
As we admire the beautiful in death. 
Thine was a dangerous gift, the gift of Beauty. 
Would thou hadst less, or wert as once thou wast, 
Inspiring awe in those who now enslave thee !" 

DEPARTURE FROM GENOA DRIFTING IN A CALM A THEOLOGICAL FROG 

CONSUMMATION OF LOVE ANCHORING AT LEGHORN MORNING AND 

EVENING SEQUEL OF A HAPPY MARRIAGE MUTUAL RECOGNITION 

NIGHT AFTER LOBSTER REMINISCENCES OF CHILDHOOD. 

We had said or sung our farewell to Genoa, and 
were now on board ship, moving in company with 
the Flag towards Leghorn ; but it was such a move- 
ment as a criminal, conscious of a love of life, would 
desire on his way to execution. So still lay the wa- 
ters around us, a dog jumped overboard on to the 
shadow of our ship. Not a breath came sufficient 
to crisp the sea, and a tortoise travelling on shore in 
the same direction, went out of sight, though he ap- 
peared to be a paralytic in two of his legs, and to 
have lost one of the others by some unaccountable 
misfortune. 

Perluips in some horougJi election he had gone the 



188 ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 

whole qiiadrujped^ and thinking a vote defeated as 
good as one gained, had scuffled himself out of a 
limb instead of an eije^ as is visually the case. Be 
that as it may, he got ahead — it may be owing to the 
fact that our ship did not move at all — but certainly 
I never saw a tortoise travel so fast as that one. 

The three most miserably helpless things in the 
world, are a ship in a calm, a whale thoroughly 
stranded, and a politician in bad odor. The devil 
himself would have nothing to do with either, unless 
it were the last ; he seldom utterly forsakes a political 
game-cock ; 

But keeps him at the battle, or the drill, 
To woi-k his master further mischief still. 

But what have canvassing and cock-fighting to do 
with our getting to Leghorn ? Just as much, reader, 
as the winds and waves, for they are both so breath- 
less and still, that our ship headed indifferently, first 
for the port to which we were bound, then for that 
which we had left. " Zounds !" said Jack, rubbing 
his eyes and looking again at the compass, " the stem 
of the ship has got into her stern, or we are going 
back to Genoa." " Going !" interrupted a boatswain's 
mate dryly, " the rocks on that shore move as much 
as this ship ; we have not logged a fathom these six- 
teen watches, and what matter which way she heads, 
since she don't stir. The Paddy that got on wrong 
side afore was right till his horse got under way ; 

5 



A FROG FALLING IN LOVE. 139 

when the toad jumps it will be time to say whether 
it be back'ard or for'ard." 

Here the dialogue was interrupted ; but the allu- 
sion to the toad, so singular from the lips of a sailor, 
reminded me of an old friend with whom I became 
acquainted during my connection with the Theologi- 
cal Seminary at Andover, and who was, perhaps, the 
most remarkable frog of this age. He had, it is 
true, none of those glaring and striking qualities 
which blind one with their very brilliancy ; he was 
rather distinguished for sedateness, and dignity of 
demeanor, and that graceful amenity of deportment 
which intimated his high extraction. He lived a7)iong 
his brethren, but ahove them. There was no pride in 
his look, and yet he admitted none into terms of per- 
fect familiarity. He did not appear to be rebukingly 
averse to such irregularities and improprieties in 
others, but his voice was never heard disturbing the 
stillness of the night, or the sweet slumber of the 
morning. 

Like a true gentleman, he made his appearance 
about mid-day, under the protection of a juniper 
which shades the verge of the parapet on which the 
Institution stands. Here he was wont to sit, with a 
wide and variegated landscape spread out before him, 
and with the half-abstracted air of one pleased with 
outward objects, but meditating with much deeper 
interest on the profound mysteries of his own nature. 
He seemed ever to be filled with incommunicable 



140 ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 

thouglit. His features, though strongly marked, and 
indicating an intellect of a high order, never but on 
one occasion, that I recollect, betrayed those swelling 
emotions, which, I know, must frequently have surged 
over his spirit. 

A small bird, with short bill and speckled wings, 
had alighted upon the juniper, and soon turning from 
all the attractions of the tree, began as devotedly to 
regard the beautiful green and azure dress of the 
being that sat composedly beneath, as if she had 
forgotten, in some erring fondness of fancy, those 
amphibious qualities so incompatible with her own 
habitudes and tastes. She looked, she fluttered her 
little wings, she jumped down from spray to spray, 
each one still lower, till she reached the very lowest, 
and then she breathed the sweetest note I ever heard 
from bill of bird or lip of beauty. But ere the sound 
died away, he whom she had thus strangely chosen, 
and secretly won, looked up, and the soul-yielding 
tenderness of that look may be imagined, but never 
described ! The look of my Uncle Toby into the eye 
of Widow Wadman, for the speck which was not in 
the white, might have had as much benevolence in 
it, but could not have had one half the fondness. 

From that day to this, I never saw that frog again ; 
but I was told, that one very much like him was seen 
next morning, at daybreak, making music, and that 
a beautiful bird was singing in concert at his side ; 
and tljat a few evenings after this — a thing that 



WE ANCHOR AT LEGHORN. 141 

grieves me to relate — an owl was seen perched on a 
very low stump, who appeared, in the gravity of a 
justice of the peace, to be pronouncing between the 
parties an irreparable divorce. Probably this con- 
nection, like most of those which result from beauty, 
music, and sudden aifection, had proved unhappy. 
Whose fault it was, in this particular instance, I pre- 
tend not to say ; but my daughter, I would say to 
you — if I had one — an attachment, to be lasting, 
must be based upon qualities not only congenial, but 
equally indestructible with itself. There are proper- 
ties in the heart, which familiarity cannot chill, nor 
time impair. 

But I forget the ship and her destination. After 
nine days, by the aid of a few vagrant zephyrs, and 
a slight current that set in our favor, we let go our 
anchor at Leghorn ; a place the more welcome to me 
as it held a couple whom I had contributed to make 
happy while at Marseilles. One was a youthful Hi- 
bernian of character, wealth, and enterprise, the 
other a young Tuscan lady, as sweet and romantic a 
being as ever sported on the green banks of the Arno. 
They were devotedly attached to each other, but as 
he was a Protestant and she a Catholic, they could 
not be united here, without a virtual renunciation on 
his part of the distinguishing features of his creed. 
They had come, therefore, to France, in the hope that 
the less rigid forms of the Church there would per- 
mit their marriage ; but the ecclesiastical authorities 



l-i-2 ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 

there did not feel themselves at liberty to gratify their 
wishes. 

This was the more trying, as tlie wife of the Scotch 
merchant, under whose protection the young lady 
had come to Marseilles, was bound to her native hills, 
and the timid Tuscan could not discreetly return to 
Leghorn without her. This was their perplexing 
predicament when I incidentally fell in with them, 
and they at once consulted me on my willingness to 
perform the ceremony, and the extent of mj privi- 
lege on this subject. I told them that the rite, as 
performed by me, would be sacred and sound, mor- 
ally, the world over, and civilly, in all Protestant 
countries. This was enough ; their countenances 
lightened up ; they rose as by one impulse, took each 
other by the hand — their hearts had been united long 
before — were wed, and were happy ! 

This was one of those bright spots which will occa- 
sionally occur in a man's life ; and though I felt suf- 
ficiently compensated in having contributed in this 
form to their happiness, yet several gold pieces, mas- 
sive and bright, soon came to acknowledge me as 
their owner. But these did not much avail me, for 
the ladies there declaring it highly improper that a 
gentleman, not married himself, should be benefited 
by marrying others, formed a conspiracy against 
these little fellows of the yellow jacket, and the re- 
sult was, they were all dissolved in ice-creams and 
other delicious confectioneries. 



A HAPPY HONEY-MOON. 143 



I have ever found that it is better in such cases 
to yield at once; for I had rather contend against 
twenty robbers, armed with pistols and knives, than 
one lady in the dexterous use of her innocent gifts of 
beauty, wit, and smiles. We must yield — it is a law 
of nature — and yield not only a few sequins, but 
that cherished ind&pendence as dear to many as life 
itself. Dazzled, bewildered, fascinated, we cast it 
down, and seem to riot in the sacrifice we have 
made. 

I said we had reached Leghorn ; and my first in- 
quiry was for the residence of this recently united 
couple, for the first moon had not yet waned on 
their wedded life. I found them in a quiet, vine- 
clad villa, crowning an eminence that swells up 
among the green hills which overlook the town. He 
was sitting in the saloon, with a volume of Burns 
in his hand ; she was at the harp, giving the over- 
flowings of her happy heart to its warbling melo- 
dies. 

They received me as if I had been the embodied 
spirit of their enjoyment ; and when obliged to leave 
them, they accompanied me down through the em- 
bowered walk of the garden to its gate ; and, in part- 
ing, he ascribed the happiness of his condition to 
my friendly ofiices — and she, pointing to the green 
leaves, told me that these might wither, but that 
there was a grateful remembrance of my kindness in 
her heart that would never fade. 



144: ITALY AND IHE ITALIANS. 

I assured her the obligations were on my part — 
that I was happy in seeing her so ; and, though I had 

not exacted that bridal kiss, yet and here she 

liquidated the claim, before the sentence that might 
have involved it could be uttered. Keader, forgive 
that indiscretion : it was not my fanlt ; for what I 
said was wholly without an intended meaning : 
neither was it hers; for it was the overflowing of 
irrepressible gratitude. I broke from them, and, 
wending my solitary way back to town, felt, for once 
at least, very much dissatisfied with a single life. 

The next morning we started for Pisa ; — but shall 
I pass over the night that intervened ? It was not a 
night of soft dreams and delicious visions; it was 
more like the last hours of one expiring on the rack. 
I had supped upon lobster, and it lay upon the func- 
tions that should have overmastered it, like an indis- 
solvable rock. I had every reason, from previous 
experience, to apprehend such a result ; but such a 
silly compound is human nature, I must try again 
the tempting bait ; and dearly did I pay back in 
penitence the price of my weakness. 

I never could persuade myself that this animal 
was originally intended to be eaten ; I rather inclined 
to the belief, and am now fully confirmed in it, that 
he was intended as a visible personation of the Evil 
One. But I must confess, to tell the truth, that I 
owe this deformity of the deep an old grudge ; for 
my nurse, when I was jet a child, ran at me with 



REMEMBKANOES OF CHILDHOOD. 145 

one of tliem twisting and sprawling in her hand. I 
was so terrified, that for a year there was no percep- 
tible growth in body, bone, or limb ; and this is the 
reason that I have never reached the stature to which 
my lineage entitled me. 

The reader may, perhaps, think this a small mat- 
ter, but I can assure him I do not ; for there is in 
man an innate reverence for height. Never shall I 
forget the admiring wonder with which I listened 
as my nurse told me of the giant who stepped over 
mountains and seas as if they had been mere ant- 
hills and puddles ; and who shook the pea-vines and 
plum-trees that grew in the moon ! Dear woman I 
I forgive her the wrong she did me in the fright, for 
the marvellous creations that laughed and wept, 
whispered and thundered through her stories. If 
there is about me the least touch of romance, the 
least love of the wonderful, I owe it all to her : she 
filled my infant dreams with beings of another order, 
with a love and madness that are not ours, with ex- 
ultations and agonies that belong not to man, with 
the sigh of winds and the shout of torrents that move 
not on this earth. But I forget the lobster: if I 
ever again, on going to rest, eat of another — meat, 
claw, or feeler of him — may I awake in his like- 
ness! 



146 ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 



CHAPTER V. 

Look 'round below 
On Arno's vale, where the dove-colored oxen 
Are ploughing up and down among the vines ; 
While many a careless note is sung aloud, 
Filling the air with sweetness : — and on thee, 
Beautiful Florence, all within thy walls. 
Thy groves and gardens, pinnacles and towers, 

Rogers. 

city of pisa magnificknce of the cathedral ^violations of taste 

pointed out galileo and the lamp beauties of the baptistry 

the leaning tower extent of human credulity the campo 

santo of pisa soil from the holy land signs of antiquity 

and decay the ancestry of pisa — her ancient glory causes 

of decay a warning to the world of the west the disas- 
ters of disunion dangers apprehended from slavery duty 

to africa. 

The next day, taking a light, compact carriage, 
drawn by two Tuscan horses of vigorous limb and 
free spirit, we crossed the wide plain which borders, 
in rampant fertility, the banks of the Arno, and ar- 
rived at Pisa. Our first and most eager visit was 
paid to the Cathedral and its contiguous monuments ; 
for we were like an ambitious man looking out for a 
wife, who glances about at once for the queen of the 
circle. 

And, after all, this may not be so injudicious a 



PISA AND ITS CATHEDRAL. 147 



hiethod as might at first seem ; for, if the arrow 
fails of reaching the bird on the topmost twig of the 
tree, it may strike one beneath ; and it is not always 
the highest bird that has the sweetest voice and the 
most beautiful plumage. The wild-goose always flies 
high ; the hawk and crow rest on lofty and barren 
limbs, except when engaged in rapine and plunder ; 
they then, like human nature in the practice of vice, 
descend; but they have this advantage over us — they 
can remount ; but man, once in the slough, is ever 
apt to find there his liome and his grave. 

It is strange that a look for the Cathedral should 
have brought me into this moral mire, for nothing 
can be more unlike it, as it is not only invested with 
the inspiring sentiments of its design, but with a 
deep charm caught from the silent lapse of six cen- 
turies. Its dimensions, grand and colossal, — its 
architecture, verging upon the massive force of the 
Gothic, — its material, too firm and enduring to be 
corroded by time,— its lofty doors of solid bronze, 
wrought into a maze of expressive relief, — its long, 
sweeping aisles, separated only by stately columns of 
Oriental granite and marble, — its pavement, laid in 
rich Mosaic, and the rosy light streaming through 
the stained windows, and bathing every object in 
hues of softest vermilion, — all im]3ress the stranger 
with the costly magnificence of this sacred pile. 

Yet, with all these excellencies, the Cathedral has 
defects, and violations of taste which camiot escape 



148 ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 



the most untutored eye. The peristyle of the central 
nave, instead of being the support of incongruous 
arches, ought to pillar at once a deep dome consonant 
with its own majesty; and the shafts of the side 
aisles, instead of wandering off into the form of a 
cross, should have j^reserved their rectilineal posi- 
tion, and maintained, as far as compatible with the 
strange mixture of their orders, the unity and har- 
mony of the main design. 

The marble pulpit, instead of reposing on the 
shoulders of a statue, bending in agony under its 
pressing weight, should rest upon some form more 
substantial, more calm, more in keeping with the 
spot and the serene truths which it unfolds ; and the 
satyrs which figure on the tombs of the great, look 
as if they were holding a revelry over death : one 
would not wish to awake at the last day under the 
sneering laughter of such beings. 

It was in this metropolitan church of Pisa that 
Galileo was standing one day, when he observed a 
lamp which was suspended from the ceiling, and 
which had been disturbed by accident, swinging 
backward and forward. This was a thing so com- 
mon, that thousands no doubt had observed it before; 
but Galileo, struck with the regularity with which it 
moved backward and forward, reflected on it, and 
perfected the method, now in use, of measuring time 
by means of the pendulum. 

The Baptistry, standing in self-relying separation 



TIIE LEANING TOWER. 149 

from the Cathedral, presents a lofty rotunda, reared 
of the most precious material, and combining an as- 
semblage of beauties and blemishes unequalled in 
any other monument of the middle ages. Standing 
in the centre, and looking up through the showering 
expression of its gorgeous features, you are as much 
at a loss whether to admire and acquit, or censure 
and condemn, as was the susceptible judge, pro- 
nouncing sentence on an erring woman whose beauty 
had touched his heart and bewildered his oath. 

The profusion of ornaments — arches swelling over 
arches to no visible purpose, and columns towering 
above columns, without an object, with the splendors 
of the dome, floating, like Mohammed's cofiin, be- 
tween heaven and earth, dazzle your vision, and over- 
power your critical judgment. I^or is your perplex- 
ing wonder diminished, when told that this magnifi- 
cent pile is consecrated to the christening of those 
little beings that have just budded to the light. The 
tomb of Agamemnon was an appropriate memorial 
of his greatness, a befitting emblem of his fame; 
but this sumptuous mass towers immeasurably above 
its uses. 

ISTear by stands the Campanile, or Leaning Tower, 
celebrated alike for the beauty of its architecture and 
the mystery of its inclination. Eight peristyles, ris- 
ing over each other in lightness and grace to the 
summit, relieve the solitude of its elevation, and ele- 
gantly robe its naked majesty. You ascend to the 



150 ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 

top on a spiral stairway leading steeply up through 
the interior ; and, as you emerge to the light, at an 
elevation of one hundred and seventy feet, feel amply 
compensated for the fatigues of the ascent, in the 
wide and rich prospect spread beneath. 

From the broad and fertile valley tlirough wdiich 
the Arno rolls its waters, the eye turns in wilder 
wonder to the lofty peaks of the Apennines, pier- 
cing the distant sky, or to the waves of the Mediter- 
ranean, ever rolling and rejoicing in their light and 
strength. The inclination of this tower has been 
ascribed, by some, to an eccentricity of taste in the 
architect, but it more probably lost its perpendicular 
in the unequal settling of the foundation. I state 
this reasonable conjecture reluctantly ; for, so far as 
it may have influence, it must mar the beautiful mys- 
tery that has hung for ages around this monument, 
like a soft cloud veiling a mountain pinnacle. It has 
caught a mysterious charm from the silent lapse of 
centuries. 

People like so dearly to be imposed upon, and find 
so much pleasure in the miraculous, that I would 
not, were it in my power, destroy their belief in a 
ghost, tlie sea-serpent, or the man in the moon. I 
regret that the recent discoveries in that orb have 
been confessed a hoax ; they were fast gaining cre- 
dence, and would soon have passed as genuine and 
modest, not excepting even that crystal three hun- 
dred and fi'fty miles in length, and those winged 



CAMPO SANTO OF PISA, 151 

men-bats ! Were people as credulous when informed 
of their weaknesses and errors, as thej are when told 
of the antics of a hobgoblin or the rappings of a 
wandering spirit, what blushes and dismay it would 
spread uj)on the face of a self-complacent world ! 

At a slight remove from the Cathedral, and in 
harmony with its sacred associations, lies the Campo 
Santo, or burial-place of the Pisans. It is an oblong- 
square, tastefully walled in, and affording, around 
the interior, a paved walk, covered with gracefully 
springing arcades, ornamented with vivid frescoes, 
where the footstep of Beauty bounds along lightly as 
if decay and death were not there. 

Let nature be cheerful about our tombs ; let the 
bird sing and the violet bloom — but let man bring 
only the tribute of his tears. He will soon need 
himself this tender token of regard : there is no fel- 
lowship in the grave ; death gives us but one em- 
brace, and that so cold and full of change, that they 
who have known us will know us no more ! 

The earth of this cemetery was brought from Pal- 
estine in the Pisan galleys, instead of the living be- 
ings w^hom they had taken out in Lanfranchi's cru- 
sade. It is held in such estimation, that the spirit 
which here resigns its mortal tenement is supposed 
to be far on its way to that land of which this is only 
the faint type. 

Were it the general faith of mankind that there 
were some absolving soil through which we might 



152 ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 

all pass at last purified to the better country, many, 
indeed, would think lightly of it in their hours of 
health, but in the day of death it would be their only 
object of solicitude. Why, then, turn from that 
fountain opened in Judah and Jerusalem, whose wa- 
ters can wash out the deepest stains, and from which 
the soul may pass as without spot or wrinkle, or any 
such thing, to the bosom of its Saviour ? 

Decay and ruin have now cast their deep, sepul- 
chral shadows over all the pride and magnificence 
of the Pisans. Their palaces have crumbled, their 
lights of science have been extinguished, their com- 
merce has departed, their population has gone down 
to the grave, and even their beautiful harbor, where 
once floated innumerable ships, the sands of the 
Arno have filled, till the weeds and wild grass wave 
there, as if it had ever been a stranger to the keel 
and oar. 

Silence reigns in the untrodden streets, and the 
lofty arches of her marble bridge, which once echoed 
to the stirring tread of thousands, are now gloomil}^ 
still as the trees that bend in darkness over the 
Stygian flood. Looking upon Pisa, you feel as you 
would were you bending over the grave of the one 
you love ; you almost forget the beauty that remains 
in the light and charms that are fled. Could we lift 
but one veil, it would be that which conceals the 
Past! 

The antiquity of Pisa is not a subject of greater 



ANCIENT GLOKY OF PISA. 153 

curiosity to you than of pride to its inhabitants. 
They trace their origin to the veins and adventures 
of a few brave Greeks, who, after the results of the 
Trojan w^ar, w^andered hither from the banks of the 
Alpheus; and this high descent, seemingly so full 
of vanity and fable, is partially confirmed by the 
authority of Strabo. The separate dignity and polit- 
ical existence of Pisa were at length lost in the all-ab- 
sorbing power of Rome ; but when that overgrow^n 
despotism had fallen in ruins, and left only darkness 
and crime in its place, Pisa came forth in the form 
of a Pepublic, and, so far from evincing the feeble- 
ness of age, exhibited the energies of exulting youth. 

Corsica and Sardinia bowed to her prowess ; Na- 
ples and Palermo obeyed her dictates ; and even 
Carthage surrendered the treasures of its pride and 
fame. Her voice was heard in the shape of law 
among the hills of Palestine, and inspired a submis- 
sive respect along the castled banks of the Tiber. 
Her eminence in letters, her achievements in the 
arts, no less than the triumphs of her arms, excited 
the warm wonder of mankind, broke up the sleep of 
surrounding nations, and covered Italy with the 
splendors of a fresh morn. 

But this day-spring, even before it waxed to its 
meridian, was doomed to disaster ; — the bright star 
had not yet reached its zenith, when Florence, like 
a hostile orb rising in an opposite direction, encoun- 
tered it in t]je full heaven :— it fell, still f]asl)ing with 



154 ITALY AND THE ITAIJANS. 

light as it sunk to its grave. Its fate was like that 
of all the Republics of Greece, and flowed from the 
same source — a spirit of fratricidal jealousy. It was 
this which laid Thebes in ruins, overthrew the tow- 
ers of Memphis, filled the Pagodas of Palibothra 
with woe, and drove the plough-share of ruin over 
the foundations of Carthage. 

This spirit of jealous rivalry has been the bane of 
all Rej^ublics, and the prime source of their calami- 
ties. It has driven Liberty out of the Old World — 
may it not expel her from the New ! Let the rival 
States of America realize, if their present bond of 
union should be dissolved, what must be the conse- 
quence. It would be a miracle in the experience of 
man, if mutual bloodshed did not ensue. Rivalry, 
jealousy, and sectional prejudice would bring on col- 
lision and disaster ; the alienated States would rush 
in conflict ; and their slaughtered heaps would be 
the funeral pyre of Freedom ! 

That man who talks to us of liberty and peace 
when the Union has been broken up, is infected with 
treason or insanity. You might as well talk of com- 
posure amid the throes of the earthquake, or of safety 
on the flaming verge of the volcano. All history 
gives his flattering prediction the lie, and what we 
still see in human nature stamps it with an insane 
absurdity. Union gone, every thing great and good 
must go with it : the advocates of free institutions 
would be covered with confusion ; while the very 



15i 



graves of despotism would give up their dead in exul- 
tation. Let, then, the motto of every American be. My 
country as a whole, — not the ]S"orth or the South, not 
the East or the West, — but my country as a great 
and glorious whole. Let rivers roll and mountains 
swell to diversify its surface, but over all the pat- 
riotic pride and sympathies of the American heart 
must flow, undistinguishing and deep, as one united 
republican realm of the free. 

Alas, my country ! it is now thy sin. 
And ought to be thy grief, remorse, and shame — 

That thou, a land of freedom, hast within 

Thy bosom those on whom thou hast no claim 

But that of rapine. Dost thou think to screen 
Thy guilt ? yet prate of liberty 1 — yet drain 

Thy thankless bread from out the captive's blood? 

Up ! place them on the homeward-heaving flood! 

Oh, Africa! thy captive sons ere long 

Shall break their chains and hasten home to thee ; 

Already seems to float their freedom-song 

In every breeze that westward sweeps the sea — 

There shall they live thy plantain bowers among — 
A nation of the generous, good, and free : 

Then let that heart sink cold and motionless 

That pants again to traffic in thy flesh. 



156 ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Down by the City of Hermits, and, ere long, 
The venerable woods of Vallombrosa : 
Then through these gardens to the Tuscan Sea, 
Reflecting castles, convents, villages, 
And those great Rivals in an elder day, 
Florence and Pisa — who have given him fame. 

Rogers' Italy 

CUSTOM-HOUSE INQUISITORS OF LUCCA WE ARE ROBBED OF OUR CIGARS 

WE MORALIZE LIKE A PHILOSOPHER — LUCCA FROM THE MOUNTAINS 

GROUPS OF PEASANTRY A JOYOUS WEDDING-PARTY THE CROAKINGS OF 

A BACHELOR THE GOOD OFFICES HE FILLS TO SOCIETY VIRTUES OK 

THE LUCCHESE CITIZENS LIBERTY IN THE MOUNTAINS A BETTER DES- 
TINY FOR MAN FUTURE LIBERTY, FRATERNITY, AND PEACE A TRIBUTE 

TO DEPARTED YOUTH, BEAUTY, AND GENIUS TRIUMPHING IN UEATH 

THROUGH FAITH IN CHRIST. 

Leaving Pisa on our way to Florence, a short drive 
brought us to the Lucchese border, where our pass- 
ports were demanded by an officer of the police, who 
seemed to feel the full dignity of his occupation. When 
these had undergone the inquisition, our trunks were 
taken down and overhauled ; the search resulted in 
the discovery of a box of cigars, which were at once 
pronounced contraband. It was hard to give up these 
cigars, especially when we knew these drones would 
so soon be enjoying their fragrance, while we, their 



PHILOSOPHY SERVED. 157 



rightful owners, would perhaj)s be smoking any vile 
twist of the weed that we might fall in with. 

There is something in a good cigar peculiarly en- 
dearing and precious to those habituated to it ; it is 
not so much the positive happiness it can afford, as 
its power to soothe irritation, and calm the nervous 
anxieties of those to whom it has become as a neces- 
sary of life. It is to the body what philosophy is to 
the mind — a source of tranquillity. We never see an 
old man, after the toils of the day are over, calmly 
enjoying his j)ipe without a sentiment of ]3leasure ; 
but to see a young man puffing and prattling, creates 
a very different feeling. With the one it is a habit 
endeared and consecrated by time ; with the other it 
is mere affectation, or a vicious indulgence demanded 
neither by his cares nor his years. 

Kesuming our seats, it was some time before a loud 
word broke the sullen silence which followed the loss 
of the cigars. There was enough of the soft and 
beautiful in the scene around to wean one, as it 
would seem, from a much deeper calamity, but it 
had no such beguiling effect over our sorrow. The 
sun went down unobserved ; twilight came on with 
its purple charm unnoticed, and the bird of night 
poured its melody on unheeding ears. Our thoughts, 
feelings, and sympathies were hovering in vain regret 
over the loss we had sustained — a loss, after all, too 
trivial for a sober thought. 

This unfolds one of the cardinal principles of our 



158 ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 

nature. We are all philosophers in great misfortunes, 
but lose our equanimity in trifles. The man of busi- 
ness will hear of the failure of a house deeply in his 
debt, or of the loss of a ship at sea, and dine with his 
friend as if nothing had occurred ; but if filched out 
of a few dollars by some designing knave, he frets, 
accuses his credulity, and half believes there is no 
honesty in the world. The man of refinement will 
hear that his horse has been stolen, or struck by 
lightning, and composedly purchase himself another ; 
but if some rogue has bobbed his flowing tail, he 
seizes his loaded whip, determined to flog every boy 
that shall in future approach his stable. 

We have seen a man stand unmoved while the 
flames enveloped his richly furnished dw^elling, and 
then be on the verge of suicide in consequence of 
having broken out one of his front teeth. We have 
seen a lady witness, without an aj^parent emotion, 
the crash and ruin of her carriage, and smilingly 
order another ; and then, in a paroxysm of anger, 
dismiss all her servants, because the note which By- 
ron wrote her could not be found. The truth is, we 
fret ourselves to death about trifles ; great calamities 
we endure with becoming fortitude, but little crosses 
and disappointments worry us just in proportion to 
their insignificance. Our feelings are like streams 
which chafe most where the water is the shallowest. 

Ascending a circling range of lofty elevations, 
Lucca presented itself below, in the midst of a broad 



GROUPS OF THE PEASANTRY. 159 

verdant valley, around which nature had cast this 
mountain barrier. Daylight yet lingered sufficient 
to betray its embracing wall, with its broad, con- 
tinuous parapet, and embowering belt of trees. 
The tumult of the city had subsided, or partially 
passed oif with the peasantry, who were seen in 
every direction wending their way to their distant 
homes. 

The burdens they were bearing showed that their 
arrival would make many a heart glad around their 
hearths ; these were not luxuries, or any of the ex- 
travagancies of pride and variety, but simple, ser- 
viceable articles, such as affection, with the most 
slender means, would procure. The brother had not 
forgotten his fond sister ; the son had remembered 
his widowed mother, now waiting the return of her 
orphan-boy ; and the father had numbered over his 
children again to see that he had procured for each 
some gift ; nor was she, who had been newly 
arranging the coarse furniture of the cabin, and 
trying to create a pleasurable surprise in the more 
comfortable appearance of the household, beyond 
the recollections and tokens of that conjugal devoted 
heart. 

" At length his lonely cot appears in view, 
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree ; 
The expectant loee-things, toddlin, stacher thro' 

To meet their dad, wi' flichterin noise and glee. 
His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonnily, 



160 ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 

His clean heartlvstane, his thriftie wifie's smile, 
The lisping infant prattling on liis knee, 

Does a' his weary carking cares beguile. 
An' makes him quite forget his labor and his toil." 

Leaving our passports with the police at the gate, 
we passed to the Hotel Rojal de I'Europe, an ex- 
tensive establishment, exceedingly well kept, and 
usually quiet, but which had now been rendered 
rather tumultuous, and extremely gay by the festivi- 
ties of a wedding party. They were full of song, 
anecdote, and repartee ; and their occasional bursts 
of laughter shook the whole building with their ex- 
plosive energy. 

Why cannot people enter into the marriage state 
without such a troublesome exhibition of joy ? We 
see nothing in the occasion calculated to inspire mirth, 
but on the contrary, much that might justly awaken 
solicitude and tears. Who can tell what may betide ? 
That nuptial wreath may not yet have faded when 
the eye that now flashes beneath its fragrant bloon^ 
may be closed in death ! That costly bridal dress, 
enriching and betraying the beautiful form, may not 
yet have received a soil from time or an invasion 
from fickle fashion, when it must be laid aside for 
the pulseless shroud ! and those who have now met 
to congratulate and make merry, may, ere another 
moon shall wane, meet to sympathize and mourn ! 

But this, you will say, is like a crusty old bachelor, 
w^ho never furnishes such an occasion of rejoicing 



USES OF AN OLD BACHELOR. 161 

himself by submitting to the chains of Hymen, and 
croaks when others do. ITow I take this occasion to 
say in behalf of the whole bacheloric fraternity, that 
the flings so often thrown out against us are by no 
means deserved. The life of a bachelor is as full of 
benevolence as the sun is of light ; wherever he goes 
he is regarded as common property, or rather a com- 
mon blessing, and all avail themselves of his kind- 
ness, indulgence, and simplicity as freely as they 
breathe the atmosphere. There is not a mother who 
does not look upon him as the husband of her daugh- 
ter, provided her more youthful expectations shall be 
disappointed elsewhere. 

He is considered a resource against all contingen- 
cies of this kind ; and then the widows, too, they re- 
gard him as one providentially left in this state to 
meet their condition. Besides this, the little chil- 
dren of the whole neighborhood look to him as a sort 
of common uncle ; they run to meet him as he walks ; 
gather around his chair as he sits, climb his knees, 
finger his locks, pick out his breast-pin, and get his 
watch out of his pocket to their ear, and then they 
want to know when he is going to take another ride 
in his carryall, when he is going again to Mrs. Bus- 
tle's fancy shop, or Mrs. Filbert's confectionery. He, 
with a benevolence that melts like dew on the tender 
plants, instead of feeling himself annoyed, has a 
smile, a kiss, and a promise for each and for ah. 
And he will keep that promise, too ; he is the only 



162 ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 

being in the world wlio keeps his promises to chil- 
dren. 

But he is not only this kind and benevolent being, 
when those around him are in health, but more es- 
pecially so, when sickness has overtaken any of them. 
He will hunt all day to find a bird that may suit the 
weak or fastidious stomach of the patient ; and though 
after all this |)ains-taking, not a bone of it may be 
picked, yet he is just as ready to start the next day 
and look up another : and all this is done for wife, 
widow, or child alike. 

If death renders vain these kind attentions, his 
benevolence flows off in another channel. Those 
mourning dresses, which were beyond the means of 
the mourner, but not beyond her grief, have been, 
unbeknown to others, supplied by him ; for he letteth 
not his left hand know what his right hand doeth. 
Often the simple slab is erected by him, and still 
oftener those left in orphanage and want share the 
affection and solicitude of his paternal heart. Were 
his hearth large enough they would all be grouped 
about it, a group now more dear to him as their other 
supports and hopes have been broken. 

Such are the feelings, and such the benevolent 
habits of the good old bachelor. He is a blessing 
to the community in which he lives. He is a hus- 
band for all the widows, and all those disappointed 
elsewhere ; he is the indulgent uncle of all the chil- 
dren ; he attends to the sick, buries the dead, and 



VIRTTJES OF THE LUCCHESE. 163 



takes care of the living. Blessings on him ; bless- 
ings on his occupation ; blessings on his memorj ; 
and be his the blessing of a patient cherishing wife 
long before he shall be under the sod. 

There is but little in Lucca to detain the curious 
traveller. The cathedral is in imitation of the one at 
Pisa, but inferior in every respect ; the royal palace, 
in the absence of architectural pretensions, has one 
feature to recommend it — every article of its superb 
furniture is the work of Lucchese artisans. The citi- 
zens are remarkable for their industry, virtue, and 
love of liberty ; the peasantry, especially those occu- 
pying the woody steeps, are hardy, and represent a 
race that gloried in their independence. They sub- 
sist mainly on the chestnut, which grows here very 
large ; and when boiled or roasted, is very nutritious. 

On this simple fare their spirits are always light 
and buoyant, and notwithstanding the exertions of 
despotism, their limbs are still fetterless and free as 
the winds that visit their lofty dwellings. .Those in 
the vales, and the lowlands of the Serchio, may clank 
the chain, but the songs of freedom will still be 
echoed about the stupendous steeps of the Apennines. 
Their rallying-call is the loud thunder, their spears 
are tipped with lightning, and their rush is like that 
of the torrent rolling from the dark bosom of the rent 
cloud. 

The car of despotism has rolled in triumph over 
all the peopled plains of the civilized world, but on 



164 ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. 

the nigged mountains, and about tlie inaccessible 
cliffs, there have ever been those who have main- 
tained their indej^endence ; who have kept the beacon- 
lights of freedom constantly burning — watch-fires, 
that with inore than a comet's power have cast their 
ominous light into the pale recesses of kings. When 
tyranny shall have extinguished these, it will have 
achieved its last triumph, and liberty lost its last hope. 
But they are not thus to be extinguished ; a better 
destiny awaits human nature. 

Man shall not always mourn, and lowly bend 
His neck to pave a pampered despot's way ; 

His spirit " cribbed, confined," will yet ascend, 
As eagles soar towards the source of day: 

His freedom-shout shall with his torrents blend, 
And fill Imperial Senates with dismay. 

While on the wall an unseen hand will fling 

The mystic words that blanched Assyria's king. 

Like him disowned of God, denounced, discrowned, 
Monarchs shall mock the diadems they wore ; 

Nor parasite nor crouching slave be found 

Where satraps knelt and nations bowed before ; 

While o'er the mount, the river, plain, and sea. 

Ascends to God the anthem of the free. 

Spirit of Liberty ! thou art endowed 

With such an energy as will compel 
This earth to thy embrace : monarchs have bowed 

To thee, and must, or hear their hurried knell ! 

Spirit of Liberty ! thy sacred light 

Streams up the heaven to herald in the day 



FUTURE FBATEKNITY Al^D PEACE. 165 



When roused-up nations, resting fronai the fight 

And carnage of the field, shall meekly lay 
Their clashing weapons by, no more to blight 
And mar that form which God hath clothed with light. 

Then will the clarion, voiceless as the grave, 
No more arouse the war-steed with its breath, 

Nor summon forth the unreturning brave, 

Nor peal its larums through the ranks of death — 

But through the world shall sound the slave's release, 

And loud hosannas to the Prince of Peace. 



After a page or two more on Florence, abruptly suspended 
in the midst of a sentence, the Notes on Italy were never re- 
sumed by Mr. Colton ; and they were left to the day of his 
death uncorrected, just as he jotted them down in the leaves of 
his Journal. The work of the Editor in putting the foregoing 
Notes into shape, as well as those we have called " The Sea and 
the Sailor," has been not unlike that of the painter in restoring 
an old picture, or of an engraver in cutting the lines of his 
design. Though it be not exactly what the Author would have 
done, had he himself attempted it, the Editor ventures to believe 
that full justice has been done to his head and heart. 

Our track of Mr. Colton's footsteps in the Mediterranean, 
which many have followed with pleasure through " Ship and 
Shore " and " Land and Lee," is here necessarily ended. With the 
following delicate tribute of regard to one whose presence in the 
Constellation, during her cruise in the Mediterranean, gave an 
embellishment seldom known to life in a frigate, we pass to 
other valuable remains never before published. 

There was one — who often accompanied us in our 
diversions along the shores of the Mediterranean — 
one who frequently gave to such occasions an interest 



loo A TRIBUTE TO WORTH AND BEAUTl'. 

beyond the objects which lured our steps — one who 
Avould light up the most common themes with her 
sparkling gems of thought, or supply the worn topics 
with others, brilliant and fresh from recollection and 
fancy — one who made others happy, without seeming 
to be conscious that she was the source ; and who 
ever delicately evaded, as if misplaced, the admira- 
tion her youth, genius, and beauty awakened — who 
now, alas ! has left us forever ! She has gone from 
the circle of our friendship, and the hearth of her 
fond father, to return no more ! Over the pleading 
youth of her age, and the retaining force of our affec- 
tion, death has sadly triumphed ! 

The delicate virtues that had bloomed, and those 
that were timidly expanding to the light, have per- 
ished from the earth ! The form that moved so 
lightly; the eye that beamed with such tenderness 
and hope ; the lips that ever breathed the accents of 
gentleness and truth ; the ear on which music never 
sacrificed its charm ; the rich locks that rendered the 
cheek still more transparent in the relief of their 
raven darkness ; and the face, filled with the expres- 
sions of sweetness and beauty, and where no frown 
ever cast its shadow — all have gone down into the 
silent recesses of the grave ! 

The ship in which she had traversed the ocean — ■ 
where she had seen the wonders of God displayed in 
the deep — had returned from its long absence : the 
green hills of her native land were breaking thehori 



EXPECTATION AND DISAPPOINTMENT. 167 



zon ; another day, and she would tread that beloved 
shore. Many were gathered there to whom she was 
tenderly allied, and who waited to embrace her with 
a sister's yearning love : she had redeemed the 
j^ledge in which they parted ; and often beguiled 
their lonely hours with the gi-aphic beauties of her 
pen : they now waited to enfold her in their arms, 
and half blamed the breeze that brought the ship so 
slowly to her anchor. 

They were the first on board, and sought first the 
one they most loved. Alas ! the pale form was there, 
but the spirit that gave it light and animation had 
fled ! Still the tokens of its peaceful departure lin- 
gered in the sweet composure of her face ; the calm 
brow was still written with thought ; the cheek softly 
tinged with the dreams of her rest. They had come 
to greet her, to hear her speak, and welcome her 
home ; but the only office that now remained, was to 
consign to the earth this beautiful relic : with break- 
ing hearts, they dressed her grave on the banks of 
that stream where she strayed in her childhood, and 
where long the melancholy wave will murmur the 
music of her name. 

What avails it now that she so widely surveyed 
the scenes which lend attraction to other shores ? 
that she wandered among the hills of Greece, and 
gazed at the bright isles of the JEgean ? — that she 
lifted her eye to the solemn dome of St. Sophia, and 
vvalked in the deep shadows of the Coliseum at 



168 THE SECRET OF HEK PEACE. 

Kume? — that she saw Yenice emerging in splendor 
from the wave, and Etna still sending up its steep 
column of cloud ? — that she glanced through the gay 
saloons of Parisian pride, and lingered along the 
banks of the Nile ? — that she surveyed the pyramids 
of moldered Egyj)t, and made her pilgrimage to the 
desolate city of David ? — that she stood in the garden 
v/here persecuted love resigned itself to the bitter- 
ness of its cup — on. that, mount where the Innocent 
suffered, that the guilty might live — and by that 
tomb which once sepulchred the hopes of the world ? 

Ah ! these availed her ; for these mementoes of a 
dying Saviour's affection, and of his triumph over 
death, were themes upon which her latest and fond- 
est thoughts dwelt. She knew, at length, that her 
hour had come, but her confidence in the faithful- 
ness of this Redeemer made her a stranger to dis- 
may ; she felt that she was passing beyond the as- 
siduities of mortal friendship and affection, but she 
cast herself resignedly upon the love of this compas- 
sionate Jesus. Her last faint accents whispered of 
the Cross, and of that land where tears and farewells 
are unknown. 

Shall we see one dying so young, and with so 
many objects to attach her to life, and not be re- 
minded of the hastening hour when we must follow 
her? Shall the admonition that tenderly speaks 
from her grave be lightly regarded ? Shall the se- 
raphic look in which she died be soon forgotten ? 



FAITH TRIUMPHS OVER DEATH. 169 

Shall the religion, displaying the signet of her resig- 
nation and triumphant hopes, continue to be a stran- 
ger to these hearts ? If one so faultless could not 
die without the light of a Saviour's love, how shall 
we, in our sins of deeper shade, meet the King of 
Terrors ? 

Ah ! there is only one Being that can sustain in 
that last hour of need ; only one that can furnish, in 
this extremity of nature, a refuge for the soul. This 
One has long been near us, waiting to be gracious ; 
he has tarried without, suing for admission to our 
confidence, till his locks are wet with the drops of the 
night. Happy he who admits this Saviour to his in- 
most heart : death may then break down and lay in 
ruins this mortal form ; but the spirit will have given 
it " the wings of the dove, that it may fly away and 
be at rest." 

8 



RODIEKER'S YOUTH 

A POEM. 



Around an infant's grave fresh flowers are springing, 
Which scent the zephyrs with their balmy breath ; 

Above that grave the early birds are singing, 
Blithely as they who little know of death : 

How lightly falls on flowers and waving leaf, 

And warbling bird, the touch of human grief! 



And near that grave a little child is seen. 
With flowing ringlets and a glancing eye, 

Darting about the fragrant shrubs between, 
In eager haste to catch the butterfly : 

He little heeds the tender flowrets crushed, 

As o'er their forms his flying footstep rushed. 



m. 

Rodieker's mother o'er his infant mind 

The tender light of heavenly truth diff'used ; 

She taught him where his withered hopes might find 
A higher boon than fortune had refused ; 

A fount of bliss whose gushing wave shall roll 

In limpid freshness o'er the thirsting soul. 



172 eodieker's youth — a poem. 

IV. 

She made him feel he lived beneath an Eye 
Whose sleepless vigilance extends to all — 

Beneath a Love that hears the raven's cry, 
Beneath a care that marks the sparrow's fall ; 

And that the Smile which cheers these fragile things, 

Around his steps a holier radiance flings. 



And oft at eve she knelt with him in prayer : 

His little hands were clasped — his eyes to heaven 

In trusting sweetness lifted, as if there 

Some infant error sought to be forgiven — 

Some sorrow soothed — some disappointment made 

A blessing to the hope it had betrayed. 

VI. 

How sweet, how beautiful that kneeling pair ! 

It was as if a bright-eyed cherub knelt 
Beside its guardian-angel, lighting there, 

And breathing o'er its plumes the bliss it felt, 
And, like the bird that soars the Alpine height. 
Tempting its nursling to a higher flight. 



vn. 

And yet, all mortal rose that mother's prayer: 
" Father," she said, " oh ! bless my darling child 

Preserve his infant steps from error's snare. 
And keep his tender bosom undefiled ; 

And grant to him that gem of heavenly light, 

Which only they who have can read aright." 



-A POEM. 173 



vm. 

And then she laid him in his quiet rest, 
But often to his couch would softly creep, 

And hang above his lightly-heaving breast ; 
And often would she smile, and often weep : 

She wept, she knew not why ; but 'twas a joy, 

E'en through her tears to watch her sleeping boy. 



A mother's love ! how innocent and deep ! 

E'er gushing up from its exhaustlesa source : 
Alike through shade and sun its waters leap. 

With silent, salient, and resistless force : 
So pure, a seraph might within its wave 
Untouched by earth its glowing pinions lave. 



My mother ! sure in that seraphic sphere. 

Where dwell the meek, remembrance thou'lt retain, 

And cherished care of loved and lost ones here ; 
For oft, when night asserts her silent reign, 

Adown the depths of air that music streams 

With which thou lull'dst to rest my infant dreams. 



XI. 

I seem to lie in thy dear arms as then. 
And look up to thy face so full of light ; 

Thy soft maternal eyes meet mine again, 
As shaded fountains gush upon the sight : 

Its silken lashes seem as if they hid 

A heaven of speechless rapture 'neath the lid. 



174 eodiekee's youth — a poem. 

XII. 

It cannot be, my mother, thou art dead : — 
A fond illusion proffers this relief: 

If not thy breast on which I lay my head, 
It is thy care that thus consoles my grief : — 

Ah, death ! that lifeless form may rest with thee, 

My mother's love shall still survive with me. 



XIII. 

And I will hive it deep in my heart's core, 

And to its teachings turn with that sweet awe, 

In which the meek enthusiast kneels before 
An oracle that speaks in shape of law : 

Yet breathes its mandate in so soft a tone. 

The listener thinks the whisper was his own. 



XIV. 

Rodieker's gentle mother had those features 
Which rather win than waken admiration; 

She might have furnished young poetic preachers 
A key to portraits limned in Revejation 

So indistinctly, that a living soul 

Seems requisite to represent the whole. 



But she was one who, at a hasty glance. 
Would hardly strike as beautiful, and yet 

Some hidden charm of form or countenance, 
Like silver planets when the sun has set, 

Would seem to cast its veil of shadows by, 

And timidly advance upon the eye.- 



-A POEM. 1T5 



XVI. 

Her very presence on your wonder stole 
With such an atmosphere of tender light, 

It seemed as some aurora of the pole 

Were melting down the silent depths of night ; 

And yet you felt that merely light and air 

Could never form a thing so sweet and fair. 



Her features were most delicately molded, 
And so transparent seemed her dimpled cheek, 

That when her large black eye its rays unfolded, 
Her face was lighted like some Alpine peak. 

When zephyrs roll the circling mists away. 

And on its summit breaks the blush of day. 



Her step was airy, yet it had precision 

As lifted in a certain place to light ; 
Her form just filled your chastened eye's decision; 

Her stature rose beyond the medium height, 
And yet so harmonized in every part, 
It seemed quite small when mirrored on the heart ! 



XIX. 

Her voice was soft as warble of a bird, 
And yet it had sufficient depth of tone — 

You listened to its flow as if you heard 

A strain of music, which the breeze had thrown 

Upon your ear from some wild woodland lyre, 

Or Seraph's harp, or old Cathedral choir. 



176 rodieker's youth — a poem. 

XX. 

She broke upon you softly as the day, 
Or Dian from her circumambient cloud ; 

The triumph which her beauty bore away 
Was not the noisy homage of the crowd 

It was that silent worship which ascends 

As o'er its shrine a trusting spirit bends. 



XXI. 

You felt that such a one, if death were nigh, 

Could cheer and soothe you, though she might not save ; 

You thought how sweetly on your closing eye 
Would fall each glance her tender spirit gave ; 

While meekness showed where guilt might be forgiven, 

And mercy plumed the parting soul for heaven. 



xxn. 
Rodieker's father was a shrewd physician, 

With less of science than of tact and skill ; 
No word of sternness or of cold derision 

E'er mocked the most imaginary ill : 
He deemed such patient might be often cured, 
By listening to the ills which he endured. 

XXIII. 

And he would sit from hour to hour and list 
The random snatches of a nervous dream, 

Which took as many features as the mist 

That shapes its shadows o'er a murmuring stream 

And still he listened on, as if he caught 

Some new idea in each vagrant thought. 



177 



But when disease its real shape betrayed, 
And peril on his panting patient pressed, 

Observant, cool, collected, undismayed — 
Detecting symptoms doubtfully expressed — 

He traced the fearful fever to its source, 

With skill and power to grapple with its force. 



If health ensued, he never spoke of skill ; 

If death, he stood resigned and calm as one 
In silence watching, o'er the twilight hill, 

The circle of the disappearing sun : 
He felt that orb will not more surely break 
The Orient wave, than man from death awake. 

XXVI. 

But glance we now at young Rodieker's home — 
A stern old mansion, built of rough-hewn stone, 

And standing 'neath the deep embowering dome 
Of antique oaks and maples, which had thrown 

Their sturdy limbs and leaves, in matted woof, 

Above its heavy walls and moss-grown roof. 



XXVII. 

Behind it towered, precipitously steep, 

A mountain-range of forest-feathered rocks ; 

The toppling crags frowned o'er a torrent's leap. 
Whose rushing footsteps shook the granite blocks, 

And plunged into a lake below, where rose 

That strangling strife which mutual hate beiRtow^ir 
8-^ 



178 eodieker's youth — a poem. 



The deep lake trembled to its shaded shore, 
And rolled its crested waves against the foe ; 

But each advancing billow sunk before 

Its whelming strength, and disappeared below ; 

While others crowded on as fierce and brave, 

To shout defiance o'er their roaring grave. 

XXIX. 

But far removed from this tumultuous scene. 
Where circled from the lake a quiet bay, 

Protected by the rocks which intervene, 

And screened by chestnuts from the summer's ray, 

Was seen a snow-white swan, pure and at rest. 

Like conscious innocence in virtue's breast. 



XXX. 

And near this swan a little bark canoe 

Was glancing o'er the waters — light the oar 

Which urged its course, and glad the wild hallo 

That hailed the swan, which seemed to shun the shore, 

But ever to the boat turned back its eye, 

Like girl to lover whom she feigns to fly. 

XXXI. 

And young Rodieker balanced well his boat, 

A Huron chief could not have trimmed her better; 

Few, save a politician, thus afloat, 

But would have missed their balance and upset her ; 

But he excels all others as a trimmer. 

And, if capsized, will prove a dextrous swimmer. 



-A POEM. 



xxxn. 

Now light as cork he floats among the bubbles, 
And keeps the current whereso'er it tends : 

He has at times, 'tis true, his little troubles, 
Such as the trimmer has with drowning friends 

But off he darts, as quick as flying trout, 

And leaves them all to help each other out. 



Give me a Locofoco in foul weather : 

When drives the wrecking gale through hail and fog, 
He calmly calls his haggard crew together, 

And orders each a double glass of grog ; 
Then jumps into the boat, when they are drinking, 
And in an hour is safe while they are sinking. 

XXXIV. 

Why should a man perplex his soul for others ? 

Or like the Tribune talk of obligations, 
As if mankind were all a band of brothers, 

And nature's God had sanctioned these relations ? 
No, better be as cool as Peter Schlemil, 
Reserved, and self-concentred as the devil. 

XXXV. 

And then he'll pass you for a gentleman, 

The incarnation of the beau-ideal — 
A perfumed martinet in fashion's van. 

Though almost too exquisite to be real : 
But still a mortal whose capacious soul, 
In dancing Polka, gains its utmost goal. 



180 eodieker's youth — a poem. 



The Polka ! most repulsive rigadoon 
That ever revelled in the satyr's dance, 

When romping on the hills beneath the moon- 
First copied by some harlequin in France ; 

But now the pet of parlor, hall, and stage. 

And with the higher circles all the rage. 



When first beheld, the maid and matron blushed, 
As if an act of shame had found the light ; 

But now they wonder why that color rushed 
To modest cheeks at such a harmless sight : 

We gaze on naked statues by degrees, 

And what offended first now seems to please. 



XXXVIII. 

But if thou'lt keep thy heart and soul untainted. 
Set chastest sentinels about thine eyes ; 

Through them it is the shameful — chiselled, painted- 
Its silent, secret cankering poison flies ; 

Then let no image on your soul be thrown, 

Which Virtue's purest thought would blush to own. 



Return we to Rodieker's childhood-home. 
O'er which the maple cast its grateful shade ; 

While near a rushing torrent rolled its foam 
In ceaseless thunder down the steep cascade, 

And spread into a lake so broad and bright, 

A thousand stars slept in its depths at night. 



KODIEKER's youth A POEM. 181 

XL. 

The grove resounded with the lays of birds, 
The verdant hills were garlanded with flocks ; 

The meadows sprinkled o'er with lowing herds, 

The plough-fields studded with the reapers' shocks ; 

While floated on the breeze that crisped the pool 

The shout of children just let loose from school. 

XLI. 

The church, from out a granite quarry reared. 

No chiselled phantasies of art betrayed : 
Compact and stern, and, save the cock that veered 

Above a swinging mass of chestnut shade — 
Withdrawn from sight, like some strong heart in prayer 
O'er secret sins which conscience whispered there. 



xLn. 
And many graves within the church-yard swelled, 

Where youth and age, and infant beauty slept : 
How oft that slowly swinging bell had knelled 

The fate of one by all beloved, bewept. 
While each, as on his ear the death-dirge stole, 
Felt nearing fast himself his final goal I 

xLm. 

I wish my humble obsequies might share 
The artless tears our village maidens shed, 

When unavailing proved love's fondest care, 

And sorrow whispered that their friend was dead 

Beside his flower-strewn bier, all hand in hand, 

They sang his passage to the spirit-land, 



182 



The parson's mansion stood not far remote, 
So tranquil in the aspect that it wore, 

You seemed to hear his evening worship float 
In solemn whispers ere you reached the door : 

The gayest wight no look of lightness cast, 

As near that house his slackened footstep passed, 



XLV. 

He was a man of calm, yet austere mood, 
And in his sternness showed his pedigree ; 

For he was born of Puritanic blood : 
To no one did he ever bend the knee, 

Except to God, and even then expressed 

Less seeming homage than his heart confessed. 



His brow was marble, but his heart was mild ; 

The fountain gushed, though curbed its sparkling rim ; 
His eyes, as he chastised a froward child. 

Were oft with nature's gentle dews made dim ; 
He struck with those fond feelings he betrayed, 
As round his old arm-chair the urchin played. 

XL VII. 

His words were few, select, and pertinent, 

Each understood and well performed its task ; 

Before their force frivolity grew silent. 
And guilt in sudden fear let fall its mask : 

And yet, though strong his bow and sharp his steel, 

He only wounded men that he might heal. 



183 



XL VIII. 

From off the pulpit's consecrated seat 

He rose as one there called by God's behest j 

His locks fell on his shoulders like a sheet 
Of snow upon a bending maple's crest ; 

His brow, above his eyes in sternness piled, 

Repressed the lightness of the gazing child. 

XLIX. 

His prophet-eye looked out as if its ray 

Could travel through the grave's eclipsing night, 
To some far-distant clime of cloudless day, 

Some spirit-land that rose upon his sight, 
As Judah's vine-clad hills in glory sweep 
On his who gazed from Horeb's towering steep. 



He was a breathing, bold impersonation 
Of moral outlines, which he often drew, 

Impressing portraits, sketched in Revelation, 
By corresponding features full in view : 

A living picture strikes, when one that's sainted 

Will sometimes fail, however strongly painted. 



LI. 

But if you take the living, let it be 

Some one whose points of character are strong: 
'Tis not enough that he is merely free 

From striking faults and overt acts of wrong ; 
His virtues must be positive — a thing 
Whose echoes ever on life's anvil ring. 



184 kodiekeb's youth — ^a poem. 



This world is full of action : he must ride 

The foremost wave who would direct its motion; 

The timid seaman on the inland tide 

Can never feel the mighty heaves of ocean : 

Then lift your anchors, spread your strongest sail, 

And speed with steady helm before the gale. 



LIII. 

Around Rodieker's home a colonnade 
Of native beech its glancing shadows flung ; 

Its shafts and branching architrave displayed 
The climbing evergreen, whose tendrils hung 

In fragrant festoons round the blushing grape, 

That sought its love in this fantastic shape. 



Beneath its eaves the blue-bird built its nest : 
That bird had watched Rodieker's infant play, 

Nor feared the child would e'er its young molest, 
For oft he listened to her matin lay ; 

And when it ceased, he looked and listened on, 

As if with that some secret joy had gone. 



LV. 

The floors and ceilings were of solid oak ; 

No Wilton carpet sunk beneath the tread, 
No gilded mirrors on your wonder broke, 

No chandeliers their flashing radiance spread : 
No glowing landscape lit the sombre wall, 
No sculptured fawn or fay danced in the hall. 



185 



LVI. 

And yet the good old mansion had an air 
Of cheerfulness which reached your very heart ; 

A warmth and soul which oft enticed you there, 
And made you linger when you should depart ; 

But none, of all who came and went away, 

Could tell wherein the fascination lay. 

LVII. 

It was the heaven-born hope which therein dwelt, 
The light of love which filled each quiet room ; 

A mental halo which each bosom felt, 
Like gush of sunlight in a forest's gloom, 

Or blossoming of stars when dying day 

In evening's sable shadows melts away. 

Lvin. 

He was the youngest child of two ; for only 

These two had crowned, it seems, a parent's bliss , 

No daughter made its mother's hours less lonely, 
Or ran with him to share the envied kiss : 

We half forget lost Eden when we see 

A sweet child climbing up its father's knee. 



His brother died in infancy : the grief 

Which shook its mother's bosom may be guessed 
From strains wherein her spirit sought relief: 

Her pregnant sorrows breathed themselves to rest. 
Like harp-strings which the winds have rudely rent. 
In this bewailing, yet resigned lament. 



186 eodieker's youth — a poem 



THE MOTHER'S LAMENT. 

My child ! my sweet one ! speak to me ; 

It is thy mother calls to thee ; 
She who felt too deeply blessed, 
When thy lips to hers were pressed, 

When thy little arms were flung 

Round this neck, where thou hast clung, 
Caressing and caressed. 

Thy infant step was light as air. 

As 'mid the garden flowers 
I watched thee, glancing here and there, 

Between the April showers ; 
Thy cherub cheek was sweetly flushed, 

Thy locks the free breeze stirred, 
As through the vines thy light form rushed 

To reach the new-fledged bird. 

I saw thee in my raptured dreams, 

Clad in the hues of youth ; 
Thy path resplendent with the beams 

Of honor, love, and truth. 
I thought should he, whose noble worth 

Thy brow the promise bears. 
Be summoned from our humble hearth, 

How soft would flow thy cares ! 
How soft to her, whose lonely breast 

Would then such solace need ! 
How sweet 'twould be, I thought, to rest 

On such a gentle reed ! 



18T 



Ah, little thought I then, my child! 

That thy quick, balmy breath, 
And pulses, running warm and wild, 

Would now be chilled in death ! 
In death 1 Oh, no ! that sable seal 

Disease can never set. 
Where lip and brow so much reveal 

Of life, that lingers yet. 

I still shall feel that gushing joy 

Which thrills a mother's breast, 
Whene'er she clasps her bright-eyed boy 

From out his cradled rest. 
Come, meet thy mother's warm embrace, 

Return her fervid kiss. 
And press thy sweet cheek to her face, 

" My first-born bud of bliss !" 

Alas, my child ! thy cheek is cold. 

And yet thy forehead gleams as fair 
As when those flaxen ringlets rolled 

In life and gladness there. 
But then thy lips are deadly pale — 

That were of rose-red hue ; 
And thy long lashes, like a vail. 

Fall o'er those eyes of blue ! 

Still round thy lip, where mine delays, 
A smile in tender sweetness stays. 
The imaged transport of the soul, 
Escaping from its brief control, 
Yet leaving, as it passed away. 
This smile of rapture on the clay, 
To tell us, in this trace of bliss. 
There breathes a brighter world than this. 



188 rodieker's youth — a poem. 

I feel reproved that thus I strove — 
The errings of a mother's love — 

To keep thee here, when only given 
To glance a gladness 'round our hearth, 
And, all untouched by stain of earth, 

Fly back again to heaven ! 

'Twcre wrong in me, had I the power. 
To win thee back the briefest hour ; 
For guilt and grief are all unknown 
Where thy seraphic soul hath flown : 
Be mine the task, through faith and prayer. 
And Christ's dear love, to meet thee there. 



Twelve vernal suns had called the wild-birds back, 
Since first Rodieker heard their joyous trills ; 

This infant stage on life's ascending track 
Had little felt the weight of human ills : 

If 'mid its light a trace of sadness lay, 

It seemed some shadow that had lost its way. 



But there was one from whose large lustrous eyes 
Each scene a brighter ray of gladness caught ; 

Her hand in his to each light thrill replies. 

Her eye returns the glance his own had sought :- 

A timid glance — but all his heart can claim — 

Since hers the source from which the token came. 



-A POEM. 189 



LXIL 

« Bright sainted one ! the bloom of youth was on thee 
When thou didst smile and die — when I beside 
Thy couch, with doubting tears, still gazed upon thee, 

And idly thought thou yet wouldst be my bride : 
So like to life the slumber death had cast 
On thy sweet face, my first love and my last. 

Lxin. 

" I watched to see those lids theii* light unfold, 
For still thy forehead rose serene and fair 
As when those raven ringlets richly rolled 

O'er life, which dwelt in thought and beauty there : 
Thy cheek the while was rosy with the theme 
That flushed along the spirit's mystic dream. 

LXIV. 

" Thy lips were circled with that silent smile 
Which oft around their dewy freshness woke, 
When some more happy thought or harmless wile 

Upon thy warm and wandering fancy broke : 
For thou wert Nature's child, and took the tone 
Of every pulse, as if it were thine own. 

LXV. 

" I watched, and still believed that thou wouldst wake, 
When others came to wrap thee in the shroud ; 
I thought to see this seeming slumber break, 

As I have seen a light, transparent cloud 
Disperse, which o'er a star's bright face had thrown 
A shadow like to that which veiled thine own. 



190 



" But no ; there was no token, look, or breath : 
The tears of those around, the tolling bell 
And hearse, told me, at last, that this was death ! 

I know not if I breathed a last farewell ! 
But since that day, my sweetest hours have passed 
In thought of thee, my first Love and my last !" 



Thus mourned Rodieker, as he left the spot 

Where, 'neath the flowers, his lost Cathara sleeps 

A being by the world too soon forgot ; 
But one lone heart its faithful vigil keeps, 

And pours, unseen, a soft, undying flame 

O'er that loved face and fondly cherished name. 



APHORISMS, MAXIMS, AND LACONICS. 



Among the papers of Mr. Colton, the Editor found a few leaves 
of original aphorisms, and valuable sententious sayings, to which he 
has added more from other published and unpublished fragments. 
They are here revised, and presented with suitable captions, or titles ; 
and they are embodied in these Remains as giving a fair exhibition 
of the sentiments, the principles, and the style of their Author. 



APHORISMS, MAXIMS, AND LACONICS. 



THREE LEVELLERS. 

The vanity of those distinctions on whicli mankind 
pride themselves will be sufficiently apparent, if we 
consider the three places in which all men must meet 
on the same level — at the foot of the cross, in the 
grave, and at the judgment-bar. 

SHIFTS OF POLITICIANS. 

A POLITICIAN, who has no resources of his own, al- 
ways connects himself with some great temporary 
excitement ; just as a hungry shark rushes along in 
the wake of a ship, to pick up the damaged provi- 
sions, amputated limbs, and even old shoes, that may 
be thrown overboard. 

COWPER AND YOUNG COMPARED. 

The gloom of Cowper flowed from the maladies of 
his nature — that of Young from the maladies of his 
ambition. The former was a victim against his will, 
and sought to veil his sorrows even from the few ; 
the latter threw himself on the rack, and called on 
the world to witness his agony. 

9 



194: APHORISMS, MAXIMS, AND LACONICS. 

THE LAWYER AND HIS FEES. 

Lawyers find their fees in the faults of our nature ; 
just as woodpeckers get their worms out of the rotten 
parts of the trees. 

PULPIT AMATEURS. 

The pulpit has its amateurs, and the fiddle also : 
and they both perform occasionally for the amuse- 
ment of mankind. 

FRANKNESS WITHOUT SINCERITY. 

There is no dissimulation so impenetrable as that 
which apparently leaves nothing to penetrate. It is 
art without artifice, concealment without disguise, 
and frankness without sincerity. He who can suc- 
cessfully practise these may escape exposure here, 
but must inevitably be detected in that day when the 
heart will be required to give up its secrets, and the 
grave surrender its dead. 

HABITS OF YOUTH THE SEEDS OF AGE. 

Those habits which dignify, or dishonor manhood, 
obtain their shape and complexion during our earlier 
years. The fruits of summer and autumn vegetate in 
the spring, and the harvest of old age germinates in 
youth. 

COUNSEL THROWN AWAY UPON SELF-CONCEIT. 

Advice, given to self-conceited men, is like water 
cast upon a duck's back — it never penetrates. 



195 



LITTLE MEN AND LARGE MEASURES. 

The patronizing air with which some men pipe to 
every great movement in the community, is often 
extremely ludicrous. The vast objects on which they 
bestow their gratuitous favors, so far from lifting 
them into their own element, and making them par- 
takers of their sublimity and grandeur, only have the 
effect to dwarf them the more, to render their in- 
significance still more palpable, and expose their 
vanity to the mirth of mankind. They resemble 
one who should fiddle, on the desert of Sahara, to the 
towering columns of sand, whirling in their sirocco 
waltz. 

PIETY IN THE LOFTY AND THE LOW. 

The piety of the humble and obscure is less im- 
posing, but it is more vital, as it is more simj)le, than 
that which emanates from imapproachable superi- 
ority. The mountain torrent may dash downward 
magnificently to the plain, and roll on in splendor to 
the ocean ; but it is the little streamlet, winding 
around in the valley, and revealing here and there 
the traces of its brightness and purity, that fertilizes 
and refreshens the earth. 

ACTIONS SURVIVE THEIR ACTORS. 

Death may remove from us the great and good, 
but the force of their actions still remains. The bow 
is broken, but the arrow is sped, and will do its office. 



196 APHORISMS, MAXIMS, AND LACONICS. 

INTREPIDITY GROWING OUT OF IGNORANCE. 

Ignorance is often the source of the most intrepid 
action, and the most implicit faith ; since there are 
none so fearless as those who have not light enough 
to see their danger ; and none so confident as they 
who have not sufficient knowledge to discover their 
own errors. 

HAPPINESS NOT IN CIRCUMSTANCES. 

Some men ascribe all their unhappiness to the nar- 
rowness of their means ; but place them in the im- 
mediate enjoyment of all that enters within the circle 
of their present hopes and desires, and they will no 
sooner have entered on the enrapturing possession, 
than new hopes and desires will begin to manifest 
themselves. You cannot place a man in such a situ- 
ation that he will not look above it and beyond it ; 
give him the whole of this world, and, like the hero 
of Macedon, he will inquire for another. 

TYRANNY OF EVIL HABITS. 

He who has struck his colors to the power of an 
evil habit, has surrendered himself to an enemy 
bound by no articles of faith, and from whom he can 
expect only the vilest treatment. 

YANITY OF LOVERS. 

Sentiments of friendship merely, are ever con- 
strued by a vain lover into the diffident expressions 
of deep affection. 



APHOKISMS, MAXIMS, AJifD LACONICS. 197 

DEPENDENCE OF LOVE ON IMAGINATION. 

Divest the objects of our affections of every thing 
but reality, and love would become friendship, and 
poetry prose. 

INDECISION A PROOF OF WEAKNESS. 

Indecision is an evidence of weakness, because it 
evinces a want of capacity to apprehend what is best, 
or a want of energy to pursue it. 

FRIVOLITY OF EARTHLY DISTINCTIONS TO HIGHER INTELLI- 
GENCES. 

The greatest earthly distinctions, in the estimation 
of angels, are, probably, as frivolous as the little fa- 
vor itisms of infancy, in the estimation of men. 

SCANDALS COME BACK ON THE AUTHOR. 

Peksonalities are like woodpeckers, which always 
hunt for the defective parts of trees ; and scandals 
are like chickens which always come home to roost. 

THE LADIES IN THEOLOGY. 

Ladies are always interesting to us on profound 
theological questions ; they never take us down into 
the dark and troubled depths of the stream; they 
skim its bright surface, resembling a duck which 
flies and dips at the same time. The motion of the 
dolphin is much more amusing than that of the 
whale, though the latter makes the deeper plunge, 
and stirs the waters more lustily in his path. 



198 APHORISMS, KAXIMS, Al^D LACONICS. 

TALK NOT OF SELF. 

Sat nothing respecting yourself, either good, bad, 
or indifferent : nothing good, for that is vanity ; no- 
thing bad, for that is affectation ; nothing indifferent, 
for that is silly. 

FOLLY OF HUNTING A LIE. 

!N'ever chase a lie ; for if you keep quiet, truth will 
eventually overtake it and destroy it. 

CONFIDENCE SOLICITED GENERALLY BETRAYS. 

IN'ever trust a person who solicits your confidence, 
for in nine instances out of ten, you will be be- 
trayed. 

OPENNESS TO FLATTERY A PROOF THAT ONE CAN EASILY BE 
MADE A FOOL. 

If you wish to make a fool of a man, first see 
whether you can flatter him ; and if you succeed, 
your purpose is half gained. 

THE WISDOM OF HUMAN CONDUCT JUDGED BY ITS RESULTS. 

Be careful how you charge another with weakness 
or inconsistency ; he may be governed by motives 
beyond your apprehension : it is the final result that 
stamps our conduct with wisdom or folly. 

A GOOD RULE OF CONDUCT. 

Secure the approbation of the aged, and you will 
enjoy the confidence of the young. 



APHORISMS, MAXIMS, AND LACONICS. 199 



BOAST NOT OF YOUR PARENTAGE. 

]S'ever talk of your parentage ; for, if it is honor- 
able, you virtually acknowledge your claims to rest 
on tlie merits of others ; or, if it is mean, you wish 
to show that something good has at length come out 
of Kazareth ; or, if it is neither, your conversation 
can be interesting only to yourself. 

CENSORIOUSNESS OFTEN A PROOF OF ROTTENNESS. 

While you say that the religion of your neighbor 
is like a garment that sets loosely upon him, be care- 
ful that yours is not like a glove, that fits either 
hand. Those who have the least piety are ordinarily 
the most censorious : a dishonest man is the first to 
detect a fraudulent neighbor. Set a thief to catch a 
thief. 

The voice of envy's ever prone 
To slander merit not its own — 
Reduce the good to its own level, 
And paint an angel like a devil. 
Thus liars think all men are false ; 
Knaves, all dishonest, rich, or worse ; 
Thus sots no temperate man can find, 
And rakes, none chaste of woman kind. 

AMBITION A FOE TO FRIENDSHIP. 

An ambitious man is himself the most sensible of 
his folly ; and his ambition travels on a road too nar- 
row for friendship — too steep for safety. 



200 APHOEISMS, MAXIMS, AND LACONICS. 

A man's TALK HIS MINd's LOOKING-GLASS. 

Common conversation is the best mirror to a 
man's heart and head ; and he that can be deceived 
by a person with whom he has been intimate, discov- 
ers a want of discernment that, were it possible, 
would excuse the imposition. 

ATTENTION CHANGED TO INDIFFERENCE. 

A PERSON who has treated you with attention, but 
now with indifference, labors under a conviction of 
having previously mistaken your character, or is now 
chargeable with misconstruing your conduct : the 
first shows a mortifjdng want of discernment ; the 
last a pitiable want of generosity. 

THE HEART MORE POTENTIAL THAN THE HEAD. 

IToTwiTHSTANDiNG the deference man pays his in- 
tellect, he is governed more by his heart than his 
head. His reason may pronounce with a certainty 
that seems to imply an impossibility of mistake ; but, 
after all, his heart will run av/ay with the action. 

IGNORANCE THE PARENT OF PRESUMPTION. 

Theke is the most assurance usually where there 
is the most ignorance : we feel certain of safety, be- 
cause we have not light enough to discover our danger. 

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN PRIDE AND POVERTY. 

The hardest grapple upon earth, is that which 
obtains between pride and poverty : and the man 



APHORISMS, MAXmS, AND LACONICS. 201 



who has become the disputed province of these two 
belligerents, is a stranger to repose and happiness. 

SOCIETY WHEN PROFITABLE AND WHEN UNPROFITABLE. 

Social intercourse is of great value as a means of 
improvement, when it has that object in view, and is 
guided by a sincere regard for those with whom we 
associate, and a real interest in their society. But 
when such intercourse becomes a mere compliance 
with artificial rules of fashion, and we are driven to 
it by the authority of public opinion, and maintain it 
mechanically, it occasions waste of time, and renders 
the social circle a place unworthy of a cultivated 
mind and an independent spirit. 

PRINCIPLES HAVE THEIR TIMES AND THEIR SOILS. 

It is not often that the politician who makes the 
most noise, efiects the greatest amount of good for 
his party. Principles are seldom planted deep and 
strong in tumult and excitement : they may be de- 
veloped and enforced on such occasions, but not per- 
manently established. The foundations of a city are 
never laid while the ground is rocking with the earth- 
quake. 

THE OLD FOR COUNSEL— THE YOUNG FOR ACTION. 

There is an adage that says, old men for counsel 
and young men for action : there ought to be one 
which should say, old divines for comments on the 
Prayer-book, and young divines to enforce them, 

9* 



202 APHOKISMS, MAXIMS, AND LACONICS. 

RESULTS OF BLUNDERS. 

The upsetting of a gig was the occasion of "Wash- 
ington's being born in the United States, and the 
subsequent establishment of our national indepen- 
dence ; an error of the miner in sinking a well led to 
the discovery of Herculaneum, with all its magnifi- 
cent treasures of ancient art ; and a blunder in nau- 
tical adventures, resulted in the discovery of the 
island of Madeira, with all those delicious wines 
which have ever since 

Filled banquet-halls with song, and wit, and laughter ; 
But salts and soda-ivater the day after ! 

CHARACTER DISCOVERED BY TRIFLES. 

Many are j)hilosophers in great misfortunes, who 
lose their equanimity in trifles. Their troubles re- 
semble streams which ripple most where the water 
is the shallowest. The current of our life is ruffled 
most at its surface ; its dej^ths are seldom disturbed. 

POLITICAL AMBITION AND TIMIDITY. 

A MAN ambitious of playing a prominent part at a 
public meeting, should have courage enough to put 
his name to its proceedings without an apologetic ex- 
planation. It is not for him 

To do, then half undo what one has done ; 
To speak, then half recall the spoken word ; 
To cast a stone in this scale, then in that, 
Till Justice falls asleep upon the beam. 



APHORISMS, MAXIMS, AND LACONICS. 



203 



RELIGION AT THE BALLOT-BOX. 

There is a morbid apprehension abroad tliat the 
names of licentious and unprincipled men will ere 
long cease to disgrace the ballot-box ;— that gam- 
blers, and duellists, and drunkards, and all that 
genus, will be deemed at least as unfit for civil offices 
as clergymen. The rabid are known by their fear of 
water. It is not without reason, however, that they 
represent the exercise of common rights by religious 
men, and by those who desire upright and virtuous 
rulers, as the entering wedge of something greater ; 
for it is already inscribed on the chief record of the 
Church, " The kingdom and dominion, and the great- 
ness of' the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall 
be given to the people of the saints of the Most 
High." Therefore, if they are emulous of office, it 
win be their safest way to alter their character. 

SANCTITY OF MOTIVE AN EXEMPTION FROM INJURY. 

YiRTTJE and goodness can never be overthrown 
by attempts at ridicule and profane wit. They have 
been assailed by such weapons before, but have 
always come off unharmed. The shafts fail of reach- 
ing their objects, and frequently fall on those who 
fling them. There is a sanctity in good motive^ 
whith exempts their possessor from injury. There is 
a conscious rectitude of purpose which has sustamed 
itself amid sneers, frowns, and flames of the stake. 



204 APHORISMS, MAXIMS, AND LACONICS. 

The last surrender which an upright man will make, 
is the comforts and hopes of his religion, and this 
surrender he will make only with his life, when he 
commits them with his deathless soul to the hand of 
his God. 



FORCE OF EARLY EDUCATION. 

In very early life our conduct flows from the prin- 
ciples of our animal constitution ; but in age it is, in 
a great measure, the result of habit. The infant that 
expresses itself only in its smiles and tears is, indeed, 
the child of nature ; but the man whose eyes are sel- 
dom, if ever, wet with these soft dews of the heart, 
has gradually yielded himself to a passionless habit, 
and is fixed beyond the influence of his softening 
propensities. The opening of our being, like that of 
the flower, shows the simple original properties ; but 
as the color of the rose is affected by the state of the 
atmosphere in which it is placed, so the complexion 
of our character is derived from the circumstances of 
education. 



SELF-IGNORANCE THE SOURCE OF SELF-CONFIDENCE. 

Men who think they can dupe others, are the most 
easily duped themselves. They are reached them- 
selves through that very vanity which led them to 
think thev could overreach others. 



APHORISMS, MAXIMS, AND LACONICS. 



205 



THE THREE FOES OF LIBERTY. 

Ignoeance, and Yice, and Luxuiy, are the gor- 
gons that will devour the liberties of this country. 
Csesars and Catilines are always abundant; and 
when this dreadful trio, sent up from darkness, have 
accomplished their work, the fabric of freedom tum- 
bles of itself, and party spirit or foreign power sets 
up his tyrant-vulture to brood upon its ruins. Ghosts 
of departed republics, of Greece and Kome, and 
names less illustrious, bear testimony, all of you, that 
this, and this only, was the process of your destruc- 
tion ! Brutus, Cato, and Demosthenes, are then only 
reeds in a torrent, or feathers in a whirlwind. The 
blood of a despot may produce a civil war, but, at 
the same time, it seals the charter of a tyrannical 
lineage. 

THE FALSE WISDOM OF TACITURNITY. 

E'oTHiNG is more ridiculous than the wordless 
taciturnity of some men. They wish to pass for pro- 
found thinkers. They know that a shallow stream 
usually makes the most noise — that a deep current is 
scarcely heard ; therefore, they resort to silence. 
Mark them : how fixed and tranquil is each feature 
— ^how steadfast the insufferable scrutiny of the eye — 
what an air of the contemplative clothes the change- 
less brow — what an expression of deep and solemn 
thought pervades the whole man ! They move 
among us like a superior order of beings, who would 



200 APHORISMS, MAXIMS, AND LACONICS. 

have no communion with our dusty thoughts — no 
sympathy with our grovelling affections. They would 
fain to live apart, in the retirement of their own 
minds, and to be familiar only with those thoughts 
which are either too deep or too high for the intel- 
lectual ken of those around them. 

JSTow, we hesitate not to say that, amidst all this 
apparent thoughtfulness, there is a total absence of 
thought — that, amidst all this seeming profundity, 
there is nothing but surface — and that this atmos- 
phere of golden light is a land of darkness as dark- 
ness itself, and where the light is as darkness. 
Doubtless there are men of few words and profound 
thoughts, but there are also men of few words and 
still fewer thoughts. Taciturnity is as far from being 
an evidence of uncommon profoundness, as the 
tranquil face of a lake is of unfathomable depths 
beneath. 

OPPOSITION OWING TO STRENGTH AND FIRMNESS. 

A MAN of a weak, complying disposition, whom no 
one fears, no one will be at the trouble to oppose ; 
while a man of a strong and fixed character will be 
liable to opposition, at least from those who expect 
to derive a certain kind of importance from the dig- 
nity of their adversary. But he will compel even 
this opposition into subserviency to himself, just as 
the mariner obliges the wind that opposes him to 
help him forward. 



APHORISlSrS, MAXmS, AND LACONICS. 207 



THE CONDUCT OF GREATNESS AND OF WEAKNESS IN DISASTER. 

When a political demagogue has been overthrown 
he always attempts to relieve the mortification of his 
disaster by a charge of foul play. 

There was a greatness in the fall of Sampson, for 
he overwhelmed his jeering foes with himself But 
in our politician, we discover only a loss of sight, and 
an impotent hand laid to the pillars of the temple. 
There was dignity in the sufferings of Prometheus, 
for his invisible mind was superior to agony. But in 
the demagogue we see only the flappings of the vul- 
ture, and hear only the screams of the victim. 

COMPANIONSmP A SHIELD TO CRIME. 

Yenality in others, seems to conceal one-half its 
guilt in us. The reflection that our neiglibors are as 
bad as ourselves, has a wonderful effect in quieting 
conscience. It does not indeed make our crimes the 
less, but it is one thing to commit faults in the so- 
ciety of sinners, and another thing to commit them 
in the company of saints. 

WEAPONS AND WORDS TO SUIT THE MARK. 

They w^ho cry for help in their distress, should be 
the last to crow when misfortunes come upon their 
benefactor. 

:N'ever ward off a bumblebee with a cutlass ; or 
resort to the solemnity of an oath to meet an idle 
conjecture. 



208 APHORISMS, MAXIMS, AND LACONICS. 

THE SURFACE OF LIFE AND ITS UNDER CURRENT. 

Glances at men and things seldom penetrate be- 
yond the surface of their subjects. The springs of 
action, the habits from which these visible forms and 
features take their shape, remain untouched. Mo- 
tives, which form the under current of life, and which 
can be reached only by patient study, or a profound 
sagacity, are seldom essayed, and never brought dis- 
tinctly to light. 

It is the surface of life at which most men look ; if 
the face of the stream sparkles, they care but little 
for the darkness and tumult which prevail in its 
depths. 

THE ACTION OF A GREAT MIND AFTER SUSPENSE. 

A GIANT mind may be held in suspense, but that 
suspense must be brief, and the action which follows 
it will be more decided and energetic in consequence 
of that detention ; just as a stream rushes with greater 
force for a temporary obstruction. 

A GOOD man's AGENCY IS ENDURING. 

The influence of the good man ceases not at death ; 
he, as the visible agent, is removed, but the light and 
influence of his example still remain ; and the moral 
elements of this world will long show the traces of 
their vigor and purity ; just as the western sky, after 
the sun has set, still betrays the glowing traces of the 
departed orb. 



APHOKISMS, MAXIMS, AND LACONICS. 209 

LOTTERIES FOUNDED IN FRAUD AND DISSEMBLING. 

"Were the venders of lottery tickets to publisli their 
honest convictions in as glaring capitals as they do 
their prizes, their offices would be the resort only of 
those who could not read. 

CREDULITY BETTER THAN SKEPTICISM. 

In estimating the claims of human nature, it is 
better to err on the side of credulity than skepticism, 
inasmuch as all social happiness is founded on mutual 
confidence. 

THE PASSION FOR DRESS. 

Age, which tames all other passions, never subdues 
the passion for dress in some females. Gay costume 
for advanced life, is like " flowers wreathed around 
decay." Splendid jewelry on parchment necks, is 
worse than a pun cut upon a tombstone. 

THE IMMORTAL REWARDS OF VIRTUE. 

YiRTUE may be misrepresented, persecuted, con- 
signed to the grave ; but the righteous wake not more 
assuredly to the reality of their hopes, than does vir- 
tue to an immortal remembrance. 

MORAL WRONG FOLLOWED BY SUFFERING IN THIS LIFE. 

Theee is not a selfish or vicious action of which 
man is capable, from which he is not deterred, by a 
punitive consequent attendant upon it, even in this 
life. 



210 APHORISMS, MAXIMS, AND LACONICS. 

A CONTENTIOUS MAN SOON SPENT, IF NOT CONTENDED WITH. 

If a person is bent on quarrelling with you, leave 
him to do the whole of it himself, and he will soon 
become weary of his unencouraged occupation. Even 
the most malicious ram will soon cease to butt against 
a disregarding object, and will usually find his own 
head more injured than the object of his blind ani- 
mosity. 

EDITORIAL DISREGARD OF COURTESY. 

Some editors cast themselves so far beyond those 
courtesies which obtain between well-bred men, that 
they find in their very position an exemption from 
responsibility. 'No man who has clean apparel him- 
self, will return the mud-balls with which he may be 
assailed by one who has taken his stand in the ditch. 

THE RADICAL IN OFFICE AND OUT. 

You may take any radical you please, and place 
him in an oflice of dignity and emolument, and he 
will very soon loose all his levelling notions. If a 
particle of the loco remain in him, it will be in theory, 
not practice. When we see men going barefoot who 
can afford to have shoes, without coats when they 
have credit with tailors, and living in log cabins when 
they have the means of constructing palaces, we shall 
believe locoism belongs to human nature ; but till 
then, we shall consider it something very much 
governed by circumstances. 



APH(miSMS, MAXIMS, AND LACONICS. 211 



THE STAR THAT NEVER SETS. 

There is one star that will never disappoint tlie 
hope it awakens ; its ray is never dimmed, and it 
knows no going down ; its cheering light streams on 
through ages of tempest and change; earth may be 
darkened, systems convnlsed, planets shaken from 
their spheres, but this star will still pour its steady, 
undiminished light. The eye that is turned to it will 
gladden in its tears; the countenance that it lights, 
sorrow can never wholly overcast; the footstep that 
falls in its radiance finds no gloom even at the portal 
of the grave. It is the star- 
First in night's diadem — 
The star, the star of Bethlehem. 

THE CAUSES OF NATIONAL WEAL AND WOE. 

The destinies of a nation depend less on the great- 
ness of the few, than the virtues or vices of the many. 
Eminent individuals cast further the features of her 
glory or shame ; but the realities of her weal or woe 
lie deep in the great mass. The curling tops of lofty 
waves are the crest of the ocean, but from its depths 
flows the overpowering strength of its tides. 

THE HIGHEST IN STATION MOST EXPOSED TO FALL. 

They who occupy the most eminent stations, have 
the most at stake in preserving the public tranquillity ; 
for in popular convulsions, as in earthquakes, the 
highest objects are the first to topple and fall. 



212 APHORISMS, MAXIMS, AND LACONICS. 

THE COST OF BEING A REFORMER. 

He who maintains the right, though countenanced 
by the few, and opposes the wrong, though sanctioned 
by the many, must forego all expectations of popu- 
larity till there shall be less to censure than aj)plaud 
in human conduct. And when this is the case, the 
millennium will have dawned. 

THE SECRET OF A FEMININE WEAKNESS. 

A LADY of fashion will sooner excuse a freedom, 
flowing from admiration, than a slight, resulting from 
indifference. The first offence has the pleasing apol- 
ogy of her attractions ; the last is bold, and without 
an alleviation. But the mode in which she disposes 
of the two, only shows that her love of admiration is 
stronger than her sense of propriety. 

EARLY LOVE IN WOMAN. 

A YOUNG girl, scarcely yet awake to the mysteries 
of her nature, and fluttering over the first demon- 
strations of Love, is like a child sporting on the rip- 
pling strand of the sea, when a high tide is about 
coming in. 

THE reformer's REWARD, 

He who writes against the abuses of the age in 
which he lives, must depend on the generosity of the 
few for his bread, and the malice of the many for his 
fame. 



APHORISMS, MAXIMS, AND LACONICS. ^13 



SCURRILITY BETRAYING ITS FOUL NEST. 

Scurrilous epithets are like foul birds, which tran- 
siently disturb and disfigure the foliage of the trees 
on which they light, but whose nature is never mis- 
taken, for they carry on their feathers the pollutions 
of the nest in which they were hatched. 

THE MANAGEMENT OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. 

In religious controversy, we seldom apply the Ba- 
conian philosophy of letting facts go in advance and 
establish the theory. We rather adopt the theory 
first, and then go on in search of facts to prove it. 
How few there are who take the Bible alone for their 
theory, and allow it to explain itself! One thing is 
remarkable in these controversies ; men seldom differ 
in general principles which have regard to outward 
conduct. It is rather in matters of belief in regard 
to some minor doctrine, and the difference is so small 
that it sometimes requires the imagination of a meta- 
physician to perceive the difference. If all the words 
which have been wasted in telling people what they 
should helieve, had been employed in telling them 
what they should do, the world would be much better 
than it now is. A celebrated author says— " Two 
things, well considered, would prevent many quar- 
rels ; first, to have it well ascertained whether we are 
not disputing about terms rather than things ; and 
secondly, to examine whether that on which we difter 
is worth contending about." 



214 APHORISMS, MAXIMS, AND LACONICS. 

THE WORTH OF SMILES MEASURED BY THEIR RARITY. 

A man's smiles should be like fruit on a high 
limb. People lightly value what they get without 
pain. If diamonds could be picked up among the 
pebbles of our brooks, who would wear them for or- 
naments ? 

THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF PUNISHMENT. 

It is the certainty of punishment, rather than its 
severity, which prevents crime. Many charged with 
murder now escape conviction ; some through a feint 
of insanity, some through the misapplied sympathy 
of a juror, and others through a moral aversion to 
the punishment itself. The execution of the sen- 
tence, too, when decreed, often loses no small portion 
of its moral force from bewildering sympathy with 
the sufferer. Should imprisonment for life be ever 
substituted for capital punishment, the possibility 
of pardon should be cut off from every source what- 
ever. 

MEN CONQUERED THROUGH SELF-ESTEEM AND THE POCKET. 

If you wish to make use of a man, ascertain the 
measure of his susceptibility to flattery ; for all that 
you can raise him, in self-estimation, will be at your 
disposal. Convince any man that you can teach him 
to play on two fiddles, equally well, at the same time, 
and he will promise that one shall be played mainly 
for your advantage. 



APHOEISMS, MAXmS, AND LACONICS. 215 

IGNOKANCE OF ITS TIME, AN ARGUMENT FOR HABITUAL PRE- 
PARATION FOR DEATH. 

Death is tlie most certain, and yet the most un- 
certain of events. That it will come, no one can 
question ; but when, no one can decide. The young 
behold it afar in the future ; the aged regard it still 
at a distance ; but both are smitten suddenly as by 
a bolt from the cloud — a serpent from the brake — or 
a shaft from an unseen quiver. There is no safety, 
therefore, save in that habitual preparation which 
nothing can deceive, and nothing surprise. 



AN UNFINISHED SATIRE. IN VERSE. 



I WANT — what Byron wanted onee — a hero, 
On whose achievements I can hang my rhymes : 

He might as well have taken Faust, or Nero, 
As Juan, young in years, and old in crimes :— 

But then no doubt his choice was made at random, 

Besides— "de gustibus non disputandum." 



The " est" has been left out in this quotation, 
As its insertion would destroy my measure ; 

But then its strict grammatical relation 

The learned reader can restore at pleasure ; 

And will, no doubt, with something very fine 

About my mangling thus his classic line. 



III. 
A fop in learning, and a downright fool, 

Differ, but in their claims upon our pity ; 
The first still prating Greek, picked up at school, 

The last essaying something grave or witty ; 
Both stir those subtle thoughts in him who hears, 
Which burst in laughter, or dissolve in tears. 
10 



218 A SATIRE IN VERSE. 

IV. 

1 want a hero free of affectation, 

All coarse vulgarity, or mock sublime ; 

Whose deeds can bear no misinterpretation, 

Too frank for falsehood, and untouched by crime ; 

A sternly honest man, plain, and free-spoken. 

And one whose word once given, is never broken. 



I want a hero free of self-conceit. 
Of resolute, and self-relying spirit ; 

Exempt from pride, vindictiveness, deceit, 
Commanding by the force of his own merit: 

No woman's slave, yet sensible to love— 

" Wise as the serpent, harmless as the dove." 



VI. 

Of course I shall not go among the lawyers 
To find me sucli a being — a profession 

Whose conscience always sticks to their employers, 
And who maintain, in spite of his confession, 

A client's innocence — advising him to plead 

Not guilty — though he has confessed the deed. 



Nor will I take a thorough-bred physician. 
Of all, the most accomplished homicide ; 

He kills his patients with such learned precision, 
Men swear 'twas of the fell disease he died ; 

And then forestalls the final resurrection, 

And disinhumes his victim for dissection. 



A SATIRE IN VEESE. 219 



Nor yet, select ray hero from the clergy, 

Of whom, are some blind leaders of the blind ; 

And others with a threat of hell will urge ye 
Direct to heaven — and stay themselves behind ; 

But some there are, and many such, I trust. 

Whom Christ will place at last among the Just. 



IX. 

Nor will I take a modern politician, 
His party's oracle, and polar star, 

Inflated with the pomp of his position, 
Like Phaeton in Jove's imperial car: 

His prototype fell in the roaring Po, 

But he will probably bring up below. 



Nor will I choose a poet — one of those 

Who weep themselves to make their readers weep, 
But find at last, o'er all their unveiled woes, 

Mankind in sneering laughter — or asleep ; 
Then try another phase in mortal sadness, 
And feign a fatal touch of downright madness. 



Nor will I take an antiquary : !u* 

Would sack a city — sift a nation's dust, 

To find a copper — then in ecstasy 

Hang o'er its letters, eaten out by rust — 

At last, on good authority, restore 

A name and date it never had before. 



220 A SATERE IN VERSE. 



Nor yet a dandy, alias a fool, 

Although no doubt he never plead the latter, 
In bar of being soundly whipped to school : 

He seems a creature boon to fawn and flatter, 
And thinks each woman some celestial dove. 
With his exquisite beauty deep in love. 



Nor will I take a broker : he's a sharper, 

Who outwits others — then's himself outwitted; 

In purchasing he plays the croaking carper, 
But sells as if another's wants were pitied : 

Alike in puff, and pity insincere. 

The first a lie, the last without a tear. 



XIV. 

Nor will I take a tailor — his sly theft 

Is now notorious as his shears or goose : 
The Bible says a remnant shall be left, 

And this, by his interpretation — rather loose- 
Refers to cabbage filched from you and me : 
The devil quoted Scripture, so can he. 

XV. 

Nor will I take a woman — her creation 

Was left entirely out in Heaven's first plan : 

If rightly I interpret Revelation, 

The earth was first created, and then man; 

And both were perfect, free of sin and pride, 

While woman slumbered still in Adam's side. 



A SATIRE IN VEESE. 



221 



XVI. 

When waked to being, what was her first act 
But one of weakness, guilt, and endless shame 

And when accused of this, adroitly packed 
On Satan's shoulders almost all the blame. 

Or sought to do so ; but she did not try, 

Like modern knaves — to prove an alibi. 



But let this pass— to Adam, Eve was dear, 
Dearer, perhaps, than had she never erred. 

As will from his own elegy appear : 

No heart by deeper grief was ever stirred. 

Or overcast with darker clouds of woe, 

Than that from which these tender accents flow : — 



XVIII. 

" Sweet solace of my life ! my gentle Eve ! 
The idol of this heart thy beauty blest ! 
More than for Eden's early loss I grieve 

To close the earth above thy narrow rest. 
What now to me fair sky, or sparkling wave. 
Or day, or night, since thou art in the grave ! 

XIX. 

" Forgive the frown that darkened on my brow. 
And fell on thy sweet face like an eclipse, 
When the fair, fatal fruit was plucked its bough, 

And turned to ashes on our pallid lips : 
Thy thirst for knowledge triumphed o'er thy fears, 
And prompted crime, since cancelled by thy tears. 



222 A SATIRE IN VEKSE. 

XX. 

" When I remind me of the noontide hour 
I first beheld thee, near Euphrates' stream, 
And led thee, sweetly blushing, to my bower, 

The ills that we have felt appear a dream ; 
So warm and blest, the memory of the time 
When thou wert faultless — I without a crime. 



XXI. 

" How freshly on our slumbers broke the morn ! 

How sweet the music of the mountain stream ! 
How all things seemed of bliss and beauty born, 

And bounding into life with day's young beam ! 
Alas! the sin that could such joys forego, 
And fill an infant world with guilt and woe ! 



XXII. 

" But mine the fault, for I stood silent by, 
Nor sought dissuasion by a look or sign ; 
But, dazzled by the tempter's gorgeous lie. 

That we should be than gods scarce less divine, 
Assented, fell ; and found, too late to save. 
This virtue guilt — its only gift the grave. 



XXIII. 

" But Eden lost, this heart still found in thee 
A depth of love it else had never known ; 
As clings the vine to its sustaining tree, 

When 'gainst its form the tempest's strength is thrown, 
So thou, as each new care or sorrow pressed. 
The closer clung to this unshrinking breast. 



A SATIKE IN VERSE. 223 



XXIV. 



The birds still sing, to wake thee from thy rest ; 

The young gazelle still waits to greet thy glance; 
The flowers still bloom thy early cares caressed; 

Thy shallop's sails still in the sunbeams dance. 
Oh, that on these unheeding things were spread 
The deep and tender thought, that thou art dead I 



XXV. 

7 



■' But now, to whom can my deep sorrows turn 
Where find in others' tears for mine relief? 
I only live to dress thy gentle urn, 

And shrine thy virtues in a widowed grief, 
Till near thy side I seek my native dust. 
And wait that signal trump that calls the just." 



XXVI. 



This elegy, or epitaph, was found 

Graved on a golden urn near Eden's site, 

Within the centre of a mighty mound— 
And by a recent earthquake hove to light 

A traveller, halting there to sip a cup 

Of Mocha-coffee, saw the urn come up ! 



XXVII. 



The elegy was set around with gems. 

Which flashed a radiance on its Hebrew letters 

Like that which foils from Moslem diadems 
Upon a Christian slave's indignant fetters: 

The truthful traveller says, the light they gave 

Might wake a young Aurora in the grave! 



224 A SATERE m VERSE. 



XXVIII. 

This urn our new lights in geology 

Maintain upsets the credibility 
Of all our Scriptural chronology : 

The earth, they say, then in its infancy, 
And man a savage, without steel or derrick, 
Could never have bequeathed us such a relic ! 



These savans find on mountain-tops a shell, 
And say the deluge never placed it there ; 

They see in caves a petrified blue-bell. 
And think it never bloomed in uj)per air ; 

And therefore gravely tell us — age of wonders !- 

The Book of Genesis is full of blunders ! 



But to my tardy theme, or rather, story, — 
Perhaps I ought to christen it a song, 

As it is written less for gold than glory; 
And any madrigal may be as long. 

Unless, as often happens near the sun. 

The maiden wooed is in the mean time won. 



XXXI. 

This shall be brief — I do detest great length 
In any thing, unless it be a kiss ; 

And that, I think, oft loses half its strength, 
By such a prolongation of the bliss; 

For, after all, nothing the heart can capture 

So much as brevity in wit and rapture. 



A SATIRE IN VERSE. 225 



XXXII. 

I cannot bear great length, even in a sermon, 

Except where thoughts their heavenly truth instil 

Sweetly as fall on flowers the dews of Hermon, 
And musical as rolls the mountain rill ; 

But when you would the stupid sinner start, 

Then pour the truth in thunder on his heart. 



xxxui. 
Some austere writers stamp with guilt and shame 

Whatever in this world of fair and good 
May still remain : yet from the folding flame 

Which wraps the freshness of the forest wood, 
As scattered trees escape, so may we find 
Surviving virtues in the ruined mind. 

XXXIV. 

Now unrequited love is seen deriving 
Its very life from out its own despair ; — 

The mother, for her infant boy contriving 

Those schemes of future good she may not shar< 

The sister, sweetly winning back to truth 

The erring wildness of a brother's youth. 



XXXV. 

Here, too, is found the young and guileless girl, 
Whose joyous heart is fettered by a tie 

She scarce can comprehend. — Deep as the pearl 
In Oman's wave, and pure, those fountains lie, 

From which the soft, mysterious feeling springs, 

Like magic tones from undiscovered strings. 
10^ 



226 A SATIRE m VEKSE. 

XXXVI. 

The symptoms of this tender passion are, 
The downward castings of a pensive eye, 

A countenance not wholly free from care, 
The scarcely heard, yet all-absorbing sigh, 

A want of interest in what's said or seen, 

Mixed with a certain carelessness of mien. 



I know not why it is, but there are words 
Found in the soft complainings of the dove, 

As well as merrier notes of other birds, 
That seems the truest syllables of love; 

The very language which, if man might choose, 

Would be the only one that he would use. 



A man in love is fond of solitude : 
He flies away from busy life and men 

To some sublime interminable wood ; 

Some deep, unknown, and almost sunless glen; 

For nature there seems just as she had caught 

The very hue and coloring of his thought. 



He loves to wander on the shore of ocean. 
To hear the light waves ripple on the beach ; 

For there is something in their murmuring motion 
Closely allied to language, and can teach 

His young, unpractised heart the very tone 

Of passionate tenderness that is love's own. 



A SATIRE m VERSE. 22 i 



He loves to wander on a starlit night 
Along the pebbly margin of a lake, 

Whose tranquil bosom mirrors to his sight 
The dewy stars — where not a wave nor wake 

Disturbs the slumbering surftice, nor a sound 

Is heard from out the deep-hushed forests round. 



XLI. 

And there each star lies in the tranquil water 
So tremulous, so tenderly serene, 

He can but think it is the tintless daughter 
Of that pure element in which 'tis seen ; 

For there it lies, so bright, so sweetly fair. 

It seems a sinless spirit dwelling there ! 



XLII. 

A sentimental youth makes love in posies ; 

His fluttering heart is veined on every leaf; 
The perfume, only meant to please our noses, 

Exhales the tender touches of his grief: 
Till, by degrees, the nuptial noose is thrown 
Around some heart as silly as his own. 



xLin. 
Oh ! how unlike to this soft, floral wooing 

Was theirs whom we are proud to call our sires ! 
They left to doves such simpering, senseless cooing. 

And, seated 'round their ever social fires. 
With right good common sense talked o'er the matter, 
And ne'er forgot the pudding-bag and platter. 



228 A SATIKE IN VEKSE. 



Let their example teach our young and gay, 
Who plunge in marriage as a mere diversion, 

And seem to think that state a holiday — 

That love, which can survive a stern reversion 

Of all its outward fortune, is a thing 

Not taught by flowers — they only bloom in spring. 

XLV. 

Let those who kindle at the slightest spark 
Of Cupid's torch, and go off like a rocket, 

Without an aim, an object, or a mark, 

Con o'er the dying words of David Crocket : 
" This maxim keep in force — when I am dead — 

See first that you are right, then go ahead !" 



SELECTED EDITORIALS 



THE PHILADELPHIA NORTH AMERICAN 



SELECTIONS FROM EDITORIALS. 



THE TRUE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. 

Theee is no country in the world where there is 
more talk about the freedom of the press than in this, 
and no one, perhaps, where less of it is enjoyed. The 
fetters come not in the shape of arbitrary law, or the 
prohibitions of absolute censorship, but in a form 
little less effective. The fear of giving offence, or of 
saying something that may possibly clash with the 
interests of a subscriber, exerts a more paralyzing 
influence than any mandate of regal jealousy or 
despotic sway. There is no antagonist so difiicult to 
contend with as a man's own fears. Against this foe 
he has no heart, no resolution. He has not even that 
little courage which resentment can impart. 

Let the press yield to these fears, and the greatest 
sufferers would be they who create them. They 
would hear the language of commendation and flat- 
tery, but rarely that of impartiality and truth. It is 
often the most unwelcome sentiments for which we 
should be the most grateful. We get into the right 
by being told that we are in the wrong. But this 



232 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 

lesson comes from those only who respect us more 
than they respect our prejudices ; who would sooner 
censure and correct, than flatter and betray. 

We do not propose to establish in this paper any 
claims to praise for independence of thought, speech, 
or opinion, but we wish to escape the humiliation of 
the opposite. There is no merit in exercising all the 
freedom which we claim, but there would be a re- 
proach in surrendering it. Our sea notions of liberty 
may, perhaps, require too much sco23e for the land. 
But it would be a little singular if that freedom of 
thought which is acquired under the monarchical 
forms of ship discipline, should prove too much for 
republicans and democrats. 

We claim no freedom of speech which we shall 
not allow in others, and in our own columns too. 
Any man who sustains this press, differing with us 
in opinion on any point, may here, frankly, fearlessly, 
express his dissent. He may combat our opinions ; 
he may assail our arguments, and, if he can, over- 
throw our conclusions. It is the conflict of mind 
with mind that discovers moral truth, and reaches 
those great social and political principles on which 
the honor and happiness of communities repose. It 
is the ivise and the good that we should pursue ; it is 
the right that we should seek, and to which we should 
pay our homage, wherever found. Truth never for- 
sakes its friends, never disappoints the confidence it 
has won. It may at times be overpowered, but it 



EIGHTS OF PRIVATE JUDGIklENT. 233 

lives on still, and will yet assert its unconquerable 
energies. While error will inevitably cover its vota- 
ries with dismay. 

Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again. 
The eternal years of God are hers ; 
While error, wounded, writhes in pain. 
And dies amid its worshippers. 

RIGHTS OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 

Proscription for political opinions, and martyr- 
doms for forms of religious faith, differ but in the 
degrees of suffering which they inflict. They are the 
same in their natures ; they both flow from the same 
spirit of cruel intolerance, and both merit the repro- 
bation of mankind. They are a violation of the rights 
of the citizen, guarantied to him by the constitution 
under which he lives ; they are an outrage uj)on every 
instinct of humanity, and every cherished sentiment 
of moral justice. 

The pilgrim fathers who planted our institutions, 
and the revered patriots who achieved our indepen- 
dence, never dreamed that the day would come when 
their children would be dragged to the political guil- 
lotine, for having exercised the rights of American 
freemen. Such a spectacle, even in prophetic vision, 
would have cast as sickly a light over their last mo- 
ments, as the face of Cain in his fratricidal guilt on 
the dying countenance of Adam. 

There is nothing in despotism, in its most absolute 
forms, so revolting as these political hecatombs, which 



234 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 

are oiFered on the altars of party proscription as often 
as a new aspirant reaches the executive chair of the 
nation. Tyranny is consistent; it professes to know 
no rights but its own ; but republicanism is full of 
professions of regard for the rights of others. It calls 
every lover of freedom its brother, and then stabs 
him "under the fifth rib." Because he conscien- 
tiously supported, at the ballot-box, a different person 
than the one who has succeeded, his head must be 
brought to the block. His capacity, his integrity, 
his past services, weigh nothing against the crime of 
having voted as his judgment dictated. He is visited 
with the last penalties of a law which knows no for- 
giveness, no mercy, no remorse. And this is called 
freedom, republicanism, and liberty of conscience ! 
I^ever were revered names so mocked and blas- 
phemed. 

Let us cease to talk about the serfs of Europe till 
we have made ourselves free. Let us cease to prate 
about the horrors and crimes of the Bastile, while 
the guillotine overshadows our own ballot-box. There 
is scarce a dungeon in the Liquisition where the 
rights of private judgment have not been as much 
respected as they are in the results of a presidential 
election. 

EDITORIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 

There is, we apprehend, no class of men in the 
country, that exert their influence so recklessly as 



EDITORIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 235 



the conductors of public journals. Thej appear, 
many of them, to have no steady polar star by which 
to direct their course. They are, like a hulk on the 
ocean, carried away by every current that prevails. 
"We do not expect them to be more than human ; but 
it does not require an angel's decision or energy to 
hold something like a consistent course through the 
moral and political elements of this world. It is the 
suggestions of self-interest, the heat of party strife, 
and the absence of fixed principles, that give rise to 
all this inconsistency and insane deportment. 

Most of the blind and irrational excitements that 
disturb the tranquillity of the public, originate with 
the press, or are fostered by it, with the hope of turn- 
ing them to some political or sinister account. We 
do not implicate the whole editorial fraternity in this 
charge. There are not a few noble exceptions. But 
how many of them are there, who have nothing to 
guide their devious steps but the fluctuating light of 
a transient policy ! And hence it is that the men 
and measures that are cursed one year, are applauded 
the next ; and one system of operations is buried in 
ignominy, only that its moldering remains may be 
brought again to the light, and invested with all the 
fascinations of a fresh existence. Had Satan's course 
from hell to Eden been as crooked as that of some 
editors, he would not have reached it to this day ! 



236 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 



PUBLIC MEN. 



The test of public men which, doubtless, prevails 
to a very great extent in this country, is faithfulness 
to party and sectional interests, and the determina- 
tion and the ability to bear them onward, in defiance 
of justice and of truth. Thus, while with entire 
propriety we shun and stigmatize the religious test 
of England, we actually use one ourselves which is 
far more abominable, and dangerous to liberty. 

It is beyond dispute that our public offices ought 
to be filled with men who, in some way or other, 
excel. This is implied in the very idea of an election. 
But it is equally dishonorable and dangerous to cast 
our votes, or raise our voice, in favor of those who 
have nothing to commend them but the insidious 
power to rise without merit, or their indissoluble ad- 
hesion, with an utter recklessness of principle, to the 
ranks of a party. It is high time that both these 
characteristics should serve only as a dead- weight to 
sink those who bear them far beneath the level of 
negative qualities. 

What, then, are the proper inquiries to be made 
respecting those proposed to be the rulers of this 
republic ? Is Tie honest — is Tie capable f is a proverb 
in every mouth ; but seldom, indeed, does it reach 
the heart, or govern the practice. It dies by the 
poison of political intrigue, or is blasted by the breath 
of party. Still it is the genuine watchword of liberty, 
and the only one that can secure its safety. Let every 



INDEPEimENCE OF CHAEACTEK. 237 

patriot, then, do his utmost to give it power and dis- 
tinctness. Let those individuals and parties who 
in practice discard it, be marked as unworthy of 
freedom, and the real foes of their country. 

Let the qualifications and character of candidates 
be extensively and accurately known, and for this 
purpose let the venders of political delusion be held 
in universal abhorrence. Let suspicion no longer 
breathe its calumnies, while silence conceals or per- 
fidy praises the daring violation of vital and invalu- 
able j)rinciples. Let those who pass the rubicon that 
guards the Constitution and laws of the nation, under 
the pretence of their country's good, meet their own, 
and not their country's ruin. And let it be forever 
taken for granted, as a self-evident and immutable 
truth, that the dishonesty of political craft, and the 
weakness, vices, and obliquities of private conduct, 
can never be regenerated or sanctified by the eleva- 
tion of power or the robe of authority. 

INDEPENDENCE OF CHARACTER. 

Political partisans are the last men who have any 
claims to independence of character ; and this con- 
viction has not been weakened by the manner in 
which most of the measures have been disposed of 
that have been introduced upon the floor of Congress. 
Indeed, if any body of legislators can be excused from 
consulting their own innate convictions, and from 
acting upon the decisions of their private judgments, 



238 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 

it is the very body that assembles daily in our Rep- 
resentatives' Hall. 

In the first place, they are bound np confessedly 
to the will of their constituents, right or wrong ; and, 
in the next place, they are bound up to their political 
party, and threatened, in case of dissent, with all the 
opprobrious epithets of hypocrite, renegade, and trai- 
tor. Under such circumstances, it is hardly reason- 
able to expect that a man will consult his private 
convictions, and act upon the simple responsibilities 
of his own understanding. Hence it is that every 
question capable of a political bearing, is decided by 
party considerations : the merits of a measure, its 
connection with the righteous claims of an individual, 
or the reasonable expectations of a community, are 
forgotten, and it is doomed to stand or fall just ac- 
cording to its political complexion. 

The true source of all this evil is found in the dis- 
tempered corrupted state of public sentiment ; it flows 
from that violent party spirit which is poisoning the 
heart of the nation. Public legislators are like other 
men; they are not exempt from the infirmities of our 
common nature ; and when the country is shaken 
and convulsed by the tempests of party strife, they 
must participate largely in the shock — the vessel 
must move with the storms and currents which agi- 
tate the ocean. 

When the people wish for legislative measures 
which shall be honorable and beneficial to the coun- 



MOKALS m POLITICS. 239 

tij, they must calm their own passions, lay aside their 
sectional feelings, surrender their party distinctions, 
and delegate men to represent them who, unseduced 
by flattery or unawed by frowns, will lean upon their 
own convictions, and surrender themselves to the un- 
prejudiced decisions of an enlightened understanding. 

MORALS IN POLITICS. 

The political principles which a man entertains, 
and which he asserts at the ballot-box, reach to the 
happiness or woe of millions. They embrace in their 
ultimate results the safety or ruin of nations. In as- 
serting these principles, therefore, whether with the 
pen, or through the rights of the elective franchise, a 
man should ever feel the high responsibility under 
which he acts. 

What are personal preferences, or mere party 
triumphs, when w^eighed in the scale against such 
tremendous issues ? They are less than the dust of 
the balance. Petty jealousies and private prefer- 
ences cannot live for a moment in the breast of one 
who feels the full force of the political principles 
which he avows. As well might a man be wrapt in 
the dread magnificence of the ocean, and busy him- 
self with the chafing pebbles of its shore. 

Our forefathers felt the force of principles. Their 
reverence for truth, their devotion to those great 
moral rights which lie at the foundation of social 
virtue and political freedom, forced them, through 



210 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 

countless perils, to these inhospitable shores. More 
welcome to them the wilderness, with their princi- 
ples, than palaces without. When these principles 
were invaded, they rose in arms, and put their lives, 
their fortunes, all interests this side the grave, at is- 
sue in their defence. Their faith in these principles 
never wavered : they baptized them with their blood, 
and bequeathed them to us, and shed upon them the 
benediction of their dying prayers. 

Shall we trifle with these sacred legacies ? Shall 
we sport with the blessings which they bestow, or 
the responsibility which they impose ? Shall party 
names, or private ambition, be substituted for their 
inestimable benefits ? Let those who are now assem- 
bling in the capitol of this nation answer these ques- 
tions. Their example must reach the extremities of 
the land, and mold opinions long after they are in the 
grave. Our influence over others, remote as well as 
near, when we are dead as well as when living, en- 
ters into the sum of our virtue or guilt, our merit 
or our shame. 

MORALS OF CONGRESS. 

If our obligations keep pace with our opportuni- 
ties, then men in eminent public stations are under 
a fearful responsibility. They are not at liberty to 
feel and act as those who move in humbler spheres ; 
their situation demands higher sentiments and more 
elevated endeavors. The influence attached to their 



MORALS OF CONGRESS. 



241 



example is enough to make one tremble : if pure, it 
will be a fountain of moral life ; if depraved, it will 
convey to the hearts of multitudes ' the immedicable 
sickness of the second death. 

Do the public men who annually assemble in our 
Capitol at Washington realize this truth? Do they 
rightly estimate the consequences w^liich must flow 
from their morals as well as their measures ? Do they 
feel that every virtue or vice practised there is to af- 
fect the character of a nation? With these truths be- 
fore them can they stoop to folly? Can they pass 
around the intoxicating bowl? Can they mingle with 
the reckless and profane at the gambling board ? Can 
they defile the sanctity of their office in the haunts of 
licentiousness ? 

W"e would not throw out an indiscriminate censure 
or suspicion. There are men in that body to which 
we allude, of a purity of life that may fearlessly chal- 
lenge the strictest scrutiny. But we have reason for 
believing that there are those also whose conduct is 
deplorably at variance with their professions, and 
at war with those virtues on which the purity and 
peace of society depend. These men seem to leave 
the mantle of their correct habits at home, and to 
divest themselves of that sense of responsibility 
which the presence of domestic piety and affection 

impose. 

We cannot conceive of a more infamous breach of 
ti'ust than what that man is guilty of, who finds in 
11 



242 SELECTED EDFrOKIALS. 



the ignorant credulity of absent friends a release from 
the wholesome restraints of morality. It is a species 
of deception and treachery as much to be reprobated 
as that open profligacy which may be much more 
callous to shame. 



PROFANITY IN THE SENATE. 



Several of the members of this body are in the 
familiar habit of using the name of the Supreme 
Being for the sake of giving emphasis to a weak or 
worthless sentence — and of hauling into their speeches 
garbled quotations from the sacred Scriptures for the 
sake of giving piquancy to a witless sarcasm. This 
is w^hat might be expected in a wrangling bar room 
or a babbling brothel, but it inflicts the deepest dis- 
grace on the morality and dignity which the public 
have ever been in the habit of associating with the 
Senate of the United States. It merits the execra- 
tions of every man who has any reverence for his 
God, or any love for his country. Justice to the 
other members would seem to require us to single out 
those gross offenders against moral decency ; but the 
seal of opprobrium can be set without this personality 
from us — the guilty are already known, and will, we 
trust, suffer that chastisement which the moral sense 
of this nation has never yet failed to visit on the im- 
pious and j)rofane. The higher the object the hotter 
is the lip-htning that blasts it. 



POLITICO-UELIGIOUS ACTION. 2-1:3 



POLITICO-RELIGIOUS ACTION. 

We stated the other day that the political move- 
ment of Bishop Hughes and his confederates would 
not stop with their defeat at the election. The subse- 
quent resolutions of that body show that our appre- 
hensions were well founded. They have resolved to 
prosecute their object and never relinquish it till their 
perseverance shall be crowned with success. They 
will prove fearfully true to their j)urpose. They hold 
the balance of power between the two great political 
j)arties which divide the State, and they will exert it 
for the attainment of this object. 

Having succeeded in New York, a similar move- 
ment will be made here. The same motives and ob- 
jects exist in the two places, and must be achieved 
by the same means. This political ball once in mo- 
tion, and impelled by the hands of crafty prelates, 
encouraged by assurances from Home, will continue 
to roll on. The discreet Homan Catholic may with- 
hold his hands, and disclaim participation, but For- 
eign jpriests^ and they over whom their authority ex- 
tends, will ply the work. 

The prelates of the Papal See have always inter- 
fered with the political institutions of Protestant 
countries. With us they are not native-born citizens 
— they spring not from the great mass. They are 
strangers in our midst, and with all the unfoj-tunate 
prejudices whicli attach to a foreign birth. They 
have not, and it is not in the nature of things that 



244 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 

tliej should have, a sympathy with our republican 
institutions. They cannot respond to the jealousy 
with which we guard every encroachment of eccle- 
siastical power upon civil rights. They have been 
accustomed from their cradles to contemplate Keli- 
gion in connection with the provisions of State. They 
cannot appreciate its pure, separate existence : it is 
with them a moral anomaly. 

The Papal See, that great archetype of opinion, is 
itself a combination of temporal and sj)iritual power. 
From this seat of supreme authority tliey are sent 
forth. There they receive their commissions ; there 
lies their allegiance ; there rest their responsibility 
and hope of preferment. The ecclesiastics of all 
other persuasions act under an authority which be- 
longs to this country, and can be checked, censured, 
or deposed, without the intervention of a foreign tri- 
bunal. But from such liabilities a representative of 
the Roman See is exempt. 

Still, so long as this fearful power is used for wise 
and good purposes, for objects compatible with free- 
dom of conscience, and the genius of our institutions, 
we shall not complain ; with the discharge of appro- 
priate offices, parochial duties and obligations sug- 
gested by charity, we shall not interfere. It is against 
the political movements of these foreign prelates, and 
their unjust interference with our civil institutions, 
that we offer resistance. For this tliey denounce us 
— for this they introduce us with obloquy into their 



THE BANKRUPT LAW. 24:5 

public discourses — concert against us in their private 
conclaves, and even interfere with the better judg- 
ments of those who find it for their advantage to ex- 
es 

tend their favors to our journal. But we shall not 
retaliate ; we shall not retui-n evil for evil ; but we 
shall do our duty, temperately and firmly — unawed 
by menace, and uninfluenced by any sectarian spirit. 
We owe this to the community and the social and 
civil interests of our common country. 

THE BANKRUPT LAW. 

The elements of this law are good, and the spirit 
which pervades its provisions is honorable to human 
nature. The difficulty lies in realizing its advantages 
and escaping its evils — in securing the benefit and 
avoiding the abuse. 

'No good man will consent to be released from his 
liabilities, if his release is to be made a source of 
mischief and calamity to the community. He will 
not wish to have a door unbarred to him, if through 
that door swindlers are to rush. He will not accept 
emancipation on such terms ; he will not walk forth 
to liberty in such company. He will consider a law 
60 latitudinarian as this, as a libel on his own integ- 
rity. No ; he will plant himself on his own unshaken 
honesty, and, though surrounded by the sad results 
of adversity, ask for nothing, and desire nothing in- 
compatible with the public good. Such a man finds 
his protection in his uprightness and in the moral 



24:6 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 



sense of the community. The creditor who should 
attempt to invade his condition, to chain the energies 
and crush the hopes that still remain to him, would 
be overpowered by public censure and rebuke. He 
would be withheld from the execution of his wicked 
purpose by influences stronger than law — by a moral 
power superior to legal enactments. 

That a bankrupt law may be shaped so as to secure 
the just benefits of the present one, and escape the 
evils to which it is obnoxious, we cannot doubt. 
Patient application and an honest purpose can effect 
these objects. The present law was hurried through 
the forms of legislation with an impetuosity that left 
much more scope for the relieving pictures of the 
imagination than the careful decisions of a sober 
judgment. The nation was captured with the hu- 
manity of its spirit, but forgot, in this gush of sym- 
pathy, to guard sufiiciently its provisions. In their 
zeal to relieve the debtor, they lost sight of the claims 
and condition of the creditor. Legislation conse- 
quently looked all one way. 

"What should now be done is to suspend its going 
into effect till sober judgment and fidelity to its prin- 
ciples can revise its provisions and rectify their im- 
perfections. This should be done without delay ; it* 
should be done in good faith. It is the firm convic- 
tion of many of the first men in the country — men 
practically and thoroughly informed on this whole 
subject — that if the banl^rupt law, in its present 



REVOLUTIONS IN EUROPE. 247 

shape, should go into operation, it will make ten bank- 
rupts where it will relieve one. Over such a mass 
of prospective disaster, misfortune itself should pause. 

REVOLUTIONS IN EUROPE. 

The thrilling influences of the French Kevolution 
are pervading the continent of Europe. The IN'ether- 
lands are in arras, and the bloody conflicts of Paris 
have been acted over in Brussels. Austria is filled 
with alarm, and Italy is deluged with an armed force 
to keep her in subjection. Spain reels to her founda- 
tions, and the throne of Portugal totters to fall. The 
dynasties of Germany are convulsed, and even the 
autocrat of all the Kussias feels insecure. The powei-s 
of Prussia would fain shut out the light and freedom 
that beams from France, and rivet in darkness and 
degradation that despotism that has become too 
odious for the intelligence that surrounds it. 

These popular movements that are disturbing the 
whole of continental Europe, have something in them 
more stable and portentous than belongs to the 
ebullitions of momentary passions, or the blind rush 
of a reckless rabble. The first demonstrations of 
disafiection and resistance may, perhaps, be found 
among the more rash and unreflecting part of the 
populace, but this is only the foam that floats on the 
ocean that is rocking to its lowest depths. The age 
of uninquiring submission is past ; new light has over- 
spread the nations, and sentiments of self-respect, in- 



248 SELECTED EDITOEIALS. 

dependence, and personal responsibility, have taken 
possession of the human breast. Little is now ap- 
parent but tumult, disorganization, and falling frag- 
ments of antiquated systems ; but out of these wrecks 
a new order of things will be brought forth, suited to 
the present age and the condition of man. 

The last twenty years has been a period of inquiry 
and penetrating scrutiny into the insolent claims of 
despotic power ; and what we now see is the result 
of this bold inquiring spirit : it is not a momentary 
excitement, accompanied by no intelligence, and di- 
rected to no definite object. Those who regard these 
popular movements as the mere transient symptoms 
of a blind phrensy, will find themselves deceived. 
They have within them a voice to which kings and 
their privileged nobility will do well to turn a listen- 
ing ear. They may, perhaps, by a timely compliance 
with the claims of oppressed and indignant humanity, 
escape the disastrous doom that otherwise inevitably 
awaits them. This age is to stamp the character of 
centuries yet to come. The moral and political con- 
dition of the millions that shall move over our dust, 
is now trembling in the scales. God grant that this 
generation may be true to its high and fearful re- 
sponsibilities. 

REMOVALS FROM OFFICE. 

The whole administration press is now uttering its 
remonstrances against removals from office. Softly, 



REMOVALS FEOM OFFICE. 2i9 

gentlemen, softly. The doctrine of removal is one of 
your own concocting ; it is a cup of your own min- 
gling : and a bitter cup it is, too ; it is w^ormwood 
and gall, hemlock ' and henbane to the brim. You 
made the poor whigs swallow it, and you stood by 
unmoved by the agonies whieh the poison occasioned. 
It sickened the whole land ; it threw the whole nation 
into convulsions ; the great whig party was like a 
Prometheus overpowered and chained to the Cau- 
casian rock, with the vultures at his heart. But that 
stern Titan had sympathy ; the daughters of old Ocean 
bent over him and softened his tortures with their 
tears. But no such compassion mingled in the suf- 
ferings of the poor w^higs ; there was none to pity, 
none to deliver. 

But now the tide of fortune has turned ; the victim 
has become the victor, and "even-handed justice 
presents this poisoned chalice to your lips." Alas, 
for you ! Alack the day you compounded that cup ! 
You should not have gathered those herbs ; you 
should not have extracted their poison ; you should 
not have mixed that bowl of convulsive and penal 
torture. You could then protest; you could then 
appeal to justice and humanity ; but now your re- 
monstrance is without power ; it gasps and dies in 
conscious guilt. Still we hope you will not be called 
upon to drain that cup. We know its bitterness so 
well, we w^ould save your being required even to taste 
it, were it in our powder. Forgiveness is a virtue, re- 
11^ 



250 SELECTED EDITOKIALS. 

venge a crime. The " poisoned chalice" some men 
administer to others without compunction. Its bitter- 
ness they never fully understand, until it is returned 
to " their own lips." 

THE SLAVE-TRADE^ AND RIGHT OF SEARCH. 

An armed expedition from the U. S. ship Yin- 
cennes, cruising in the West Indies, was sent out on 
the 28th of March, 1843, to exj)lore a part of the south 
side of Cuba. " In the Guava river," this expedition, 
as the authentic narrative states, "fell in with a 
Spanish slaver, which submitted to an examination of 
her papers, which were all found correct. She did 
not attempt to resist, nor was a gun fired. She was 
well armed, with a crew of forty-three men, and had 
left Africa with five hundred and fifty slaves, of 
whom thirty-four had died, and two jumped over- 
board in delirium : had been at sea twenty-eight 
days. This slaver was permitted to pass, which was 
regretted by all." 

And why was she permitted to pass ? Why was 
she not captured, the public indignantly exclaim ! 
Why ? because our government have taken up a 
position on this subject which forbids capture ; and 
visitation too, even in going on board of that slaver, 
ascertaining her character and accursed occupation. 
We violated our non-visitation principle ! a principle 
that splits diplomatic hairs, and allows a continent to 
be rifled of its helpless children ! which shapes a 



THE 'SLAVE-TRADE, AND EIGHT OF SEARCH. 251 

definition, and covers our coast with the miseries 
and horrors of the slave-trade ! 

Kever was a Christian nation before jjlaced in such 
an attitude of humiliation and reproach. We were 
the first nation to declare the slave-trade piracy. We 
invoked England and other Cliristian powers to join 
us in measures for the condign punishment of those 
engaged in it, and the final extirpation of the in- 
human traffic itself. When these powers at last 
thoroughly moved in the matter, and on the force of 
impulses which we first gave, we at once backed out, 
and we have now taken up a position which turns all 
our previous measures, our holy horror and penal 
enactments, into a burlesque. We have made our- 
selves perfectly powerless so far as the slave-ships of 
all other nations are concerned. The ocean may 
swarm with them, and we cannot capture one unless 
she has American papers, nor can we even go on 
board to ascertain that fact. The slaver has only to 
run up the flag of any other nation, and her immunity 
is complete ; she may laugh at our armed force, and 
send up her jeers amid the whole squadron which we 
are about sending to the coast of Africa. Such is the 
condition to which we have been reduced by our 
foolish jealousy and hair-splitting diplomacy. 

Were we to stop here, we might, perhaps, have 
the virtue of consistency, in our humiliation and 
shame ; but, as if to relieve our condition, we are 
about sending out to Africa an armed squadron, 



252 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 

which our non-visitation principle, if carried out, will 
render as idle as if sent to the moon. We cannot 
stir there, tack or sheet, without violating the very 
restrictions which we have imposed on other powers. 
We cannot capture even an American slaver that has 
the wit to run up foreign colors ; we cannot allow an 
officer or sailor to profane her deck with his intrusive 
footstep. Had we set our ingenuity to work to in- 
vent some plan by which to protect, in the most 
effectual way, the slave-trade, w^e could not have been 
more successful than we have in our non-visitation 
principle. It is a jDerfect shield to the slave-ships of 
all other nations, and our own too. 

We trust this nation will not long submit quietly 
to this attitude of helplessness and reproach. We 
owe it to ourselves, to the moral principles of the age, 
to the claims of humanity, and the requirements of 
infinite justice, to throw at once this diplomatic quib- 
bling to the winds. We should say, frankly and 
fearlessly, to all the powers of Christendom, capture 
and sink the slaver wherever found, and under what- 
ever colors she floats. Should abuse in any instance 
follow^, demand and enforce redress : any thing but 
this skulking behind a diplomatic quibble, and seek- 
ing to protect the honor of a national flag by a defini- 
tion. It is more disreputable than even the torj)edo 
system of the last war. 

Instead of standing aloof, declaiming about the 
right of search, allowing our comnierce to be im- 



THE SLAVE-TKADE, AND RIGHT OF SEARCH. 253 

peded, and our flag used as a protection for pirates, 
it would better become us to unite in the humane 
purpose of other nations, and depend a little more 
on our own courage and activity, to prevent any 
abuse attendant on a mutual concession of the right 
of search. 

We have declared the slave-trade piracy, and it ill 
becomes us now to say that no nation shall interfere 
with the wretch who attempts to carry on this ac- 
cursed traffic, under an abused use of our flag. It 
would be much better, and much more honorable in 
us to say to other nations, you may pursue the slave- 
ship under whatever flag she floats, but you must not 
abuse this privilege, you must not interfere with our 
legitimate commerce ; and then to place at the dis- 
posal of the Secretary of the Navy, a force sufficient 
to protect our interests and honor on the African 
coast. But to do neither of these, only evinces in- 
difference to character, and insensibility to crime. 

Oh, Africa ! in blood at every pore ! 

Thy nameless sufferings are a world's disgrace ! 
Nations have battened on thy brood ; each shore 

Has been the grave of thy ill-fated race ! — 
Worse than the grave, for thou hast lived, and bore 

Thy wrongs, while death had been a resting-place. 
What voice shall now thy captive sons reclaim ! 
What arm secure thy children that remain ! 



254: SELECTED EDITORIALS. 

DOMESTIC SLAVE-TRADERS. 

If there is a class of men that ought to be regarded 
with universal and unmingled detestation, it is the 
miserable beings that are often lurking in this city 
and district, in the character of slave-traders. They 
are prying into each cabin and kitchen, searching out 
the circumstances of each person of color ; and where 
they think a speculation can be made, endeavoring 
to effect a purchase. But they do not confine their 
impertinent inquiries and merciless bargains to the 
district ; they perambulate the country, tempt the 
planter who has become embarrassed in his finances, 
and at length succeed in making the requisite pur- 
chases : a vessel is chartered, and several hundred of 
these unfortunate beings are shipped on board for the 
New Orleans market. 

The anguish and despair that are thus occasioned 
by breaking up the strongest ties of nature, by drag- 
ging away children from their parents, brothers from 
their sisters, and the mother from her infant child, 
may, perhaps, be conceived, but never described. It 
is no uncommon thing to see a young female slave, 
ascertaining that she has been purchased by one of 
these merciless traders for the Southern market, fly- 
ing from house to house, endeavoring to sell herself 
for a higher price than that for which she has been 
bartered away, so that she may be able to satisfy the 
demands of her repacious purchaser, and live and die 
among her relations. 



IDOMESTIC SLAVE-TEADEKS. 255 

AVere such things transacted on some barbarous 
coast, where the humanizing influences of civilization 
and Christianity were unknown, our amazement 
might be less ; but when we see them openly coun- 
tenanced in a land that boasts of the freedom of its 
institutions, and the mildness and equity of its laws, 
we are ready to regard benevolence, virtue, and reli- 
gion as a mockery. 

Reason, justice, and humanity demand of our na- 
tional Legislature the immediate enactment of a law 
prohibiting, under severe pains and penalties, this 
wholesale traffic in. human flesh. The man who 
finds himself in the possession of slaves, entailed 
upon him perhaps with his patrimonial inheritance, 
and who treats them kindly, is entitled to our most 
charitable considerations ; but the heartless being 
who goes about buying up his fellow-creatures, as a 
mere matter of cold-blooded speculation, instigated 
only by the most sordid and reckless avarice, merits 
our unmingled scorn and abhorrence. 

His occupation is a piracy on human life and hap- 
piness : he thrives on the tears and agonies of his fel- 
low-beings ; and the dungeon, with its chains, or the 
scaffold with its ignominy, ought to be his immediate 
allotment. 

And yet these inhuman monsters are allowed to 
shelter themselves under the very eye of our Capitol, 
and to prosecute their fiendish schemes with as much 
impunity as if life and liberty were meant only for 



256 SELECTED EDITOEIALS. 

their sport. The deluded being who lifts his hand 
against the transportation of a few idle letters and 
worthless pam]3hlets, we consign to an unwept grave ; 
but the wretch that, like a vampyre, battens on the 
life-blood of the commnnity, is allowed to pass un- 
molested. 

UNITED STATES BANK. 

Why should some be so sensitive on the subject of 
this institution ? Why regard every inquiry with 
distrust and aversion ? Why construe every sugges- 
tion into an evidence of hostility ? It is one thing to 
stand before an institution as its unqualified enemy ; 
it is another thing to stand before it as an unques- 
tioning worshipper ; it is another thing still, to stand 
before it as one ready to correct the wrong, to 
strengthen and uphold the right. 

Convince the public that an institution is privileged 
against inquiry ; that it is exempt from investigation ; 
that its errors are to be kept a secret, or spoken of 
only in whispers, and you destroy at once the confi- 
dence of the community in that institution. It is the 
full persuasion that its errors will be known — that its 
faults will be corrected, its evils rectified — that sus-, 
tains it in the calm judgment of mankind. ISTor is 
this vigilance and honesty to be the less active and 
faithful with its friends, because the institution may 
have its foes. They are not to be excused from cor- 
recting real faults because others may be attacking 



UNITED STATES BANK. 257 

imaginary ones. It is our weak points that we should 
fortify; our stronger ones will take care of them- 
selves. 

"When General Jackson waged his blind, extermi- 
nating war against this bank, heading his forces in 
person, closely investing it with the bristling strength 
of his beleaguering lines, erecting his engines, and 
heaving against wall and bastion the full force of his 
enormous battering-ram, prudence and good policy 
required the besieged to stand strictly on the defen- 
sive ; to husband their resources ; to strengthen every 
weak point ; to watch every movement of the enemy, 
and to meet every charge with firmness and compo- 
sure. But instead of this we had a series of sorties, 
all gallantly led, it is true, and making a brilliant 
display, but leaving no permanent impression on the 
beleaguering foe ; while that old battering-ram, un- 
diverted by these transient sallies, was shaking bas- 
tion and buttress with the thunders of its impetuous 
strength. The voice of the old hero in the mean 
time was heard at every point rebuking the inactive, 
cheering on the resolute, and shouting for glory or 
the grave. 

But the besieged committed a worse folly than that 
of their sorties : they sent out scouts and recruiting 
parties in all quarters — not to bring up forces, to man 
the walls, and strengthen the besieged citadel, but 
for an outside battle. So numerous wxre those sent 
out in this recruiting capacity, and such the sums 



2 "8 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 



spent to procure their aid, that the citadel itself was 
fearfully weakened and impoverished. The mer- 
cenary troops in the mean time were tardy in coming 
to the relief of the besieged, and, when they did ar- 
rive, they were without an experienced commander, 
without discipline, or any concerted plan of action. 
The consequence was, they made a poor fight of it. 
Some were dismayed, some proved treacherous, some 
fled, and a few fought like men. But the old hero 
was too strong for them ; too strong in numbers, and 
too strong in that phrensied resolution which forgets 
all things else in the achievement of its object. 

The fortress, weakened by its sorties, and disap- 
pointed in the conduct of its mercenaries, was at last 
obliged to capitulate ; or rather, it threw out a new 
banner upon the breeze — one in which the glorious 
star of Pennsylvania shone bright and alone. The 
besieging general, amazed at the new insignia, and 
well knowing that it was not against such a banner 
that he had declared war, seemed at first in doubt how 
to act. But, suspecting some artifice, he only par- 
tially suspended hostilities ; but it was enough to 
give the besieged time for breath, for consultation, 
and for arranging a new plan of action. 

And what was this new plan of action at length 
adopted ? It was to make a new demonstration under 
this new banner. It was to secure champions and 
friends for it in the I^orth and the South, in the East 
and the West ; to have it welcomed from a thousand 



UNITED STATES BANK. 259 



hills and plains. Under this new enthusiasm, past 
misfortunes were to be retrieved, lost laurels won, 
and the tide of victory rolled back on the foe. But 
all these new alliances, these new friendships, kept 
drawing heavily on its resources. Every community 
that sent in its allegiance expected its reward. They 
required, in some shape, an adequate return for their 
fealty. 

Few communities expected this, and none certainly 
claimed it, in the form of a direct largess. But they 
sought it on the face of securities which had no sound 
claims to the confidence which they required. In 
this way the energies of the institution, instead of 
being concentrated or posted where they could be 
called into immediate action, upon any emergency^ 
were dispersed far and wide, and so mixed up with 
other interests which had none of its solidity or recu- 
perative force, that their efficiency and ability to ren- 
der prompt relief was utterly lost. The consequence 
was disaster, and almost ruin, when the day of trial 
came. 

When we consider the substantial service which 
this institution had rendered the country, the benefits 
it had conferred at home and abroad, the good char- 
acter it had sustained for uprightness, and when we 
consider, too, the blind malignity with which it was 
assailed, the fury and force of the war waged against 
it by General Jackson, we are almost ready to excuse 
any errors it may have committed flowing from meas- 



260 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 

ures of defence, However fatal they may have proved. 
But it is worse than idle to say that no such errors 
have been committed, or that none have occurred 
which financial ability and moral firmness could have 
avoided. 

Let the errors of the past be our monitors for the 
future, and let it be our business to correct faults 
rather than excuse them, to rectify evils rather than 
seek their concealment. 

RESUMPTION DAY. 

It would puzzle the pencil of Hogarth to sketch 
the motley scene presented at the counter of the 
United States Bank, in Chestnut-street, on the day 
of its resuming payment. First you would see some 
active, sharp-sighted broker, very polite, and asking 
for only some fifty thousand ; then would follow a 
distrustful depositor, half doubting whether it was 
best after all to burden himself with the specie, and 
when he had got it, lookhig for all the world as if he 
knew not where to go, or what to do with it, and 
quite ready to accuse his stars for his folly. 'Not 
so with the next one ; he is a gaunt, tall figure, with 
a face so thin that only one j)erson can look at it 
at a time, pinching a few bills in his long, bony fin- 
gers, and quite determined to hold on to it with one 
hand, for fear of some cheat, till the specie shall rattle 
in the other. 

Then comes a Hostess Quickly, witli her full, red 



RESUMPTION DAT. 261 



face, and go-ahead manner, shaking her bills, and 
determined to take ample revenge for all the shin- 
plasters and counterfeit notes which her roguish cus- 
tomers have palmed off on her. Then comes up a 
sailor, taken all aback when he sees the piles of gold 
and silver, and looking as if ready to knock down 
the man who had told him the bank was not safe and 
sound. Then strides up a huge Irishman, bringing 
his own bill, and those of some dozen others. But 
what shall he do with the dollars ? he finds a hole, 
or suspects there is one, in each of his pockets. So 
he offs hat and has them thrown into that, when out 
drops the crown, and the dollars roll around the floor, 
to the merriment of all save the son of Erin. Then 
approaches a spare laundress, with her ten-dollar bill, 
asks for gold, takes the eagle and deposits it safe in 
her snuff-box before she has stirred an inch from the 
counter. 

Then comes the Ethiopian, with his white ivory 
flashing through the curl of his dark lips ; he has 
somehow got a ten-dollar bill, wants it all in fifty- 
cent pieces, shoves the shiners into his pockets, ejacu- 
lating as he turns away, " I guess we'll empty their 
big box for them to-day." Then strides up a locofoco 
with his elbows out, and his nose red enough to illu- 
minate his footsteps in the darkest night, "Here, 
Mister, is a shinplaster of yours ; if it's good for any 
thing, give us the hard stuff." Then comes wheezing 
along a countryman, with a bag on his back filled 



262 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 

with specie, rolls it from his shoulder upon the coun- 
ter, and requests its amount in bank bills. Had a 
man sprung out of his grave, the astonishment of the 
motley group could not have been greater. The wo- 
men dropped their specie, the locofoco stood speech- 
less, the pickpocket forgot he had fingers, and Hostess 
Quickly was pale and still as Lot's wife in monu- 
mental salt. 

MAY DAY IN THE COUNTRY. 

Spking-time is a season full of hope and promise. 
It is symbolical of youth, and its opening is worthy to 
be kept with innocent pastimes, and as a joyous holi- 
day. The beautiful customs of the rural population 
of England have never yet been introduced among 
their descendants in this country. " May Day" is 
hardly known with us, except as a season of common, 
social congratulation. In England it is kept as a 
festival full of delightful interest, its associations being 
of the most joyous and fascinating character. The 
season there is one of rich horticultural beauty, the 
meadows throwing off the delicious fragrance of their 
wild-flowers, while the hill-sides blossom with the 
woodbine and honeysuckle. In many of the villages 
the custom of celebrating May Day is kept alive. 
It beautifully tends to infuse poetical feeling into 
common life, while it sweetens and softens the rude- 
ness of rustic manners without destroying their sim- 
plicity. 



MAY DAY IN Tlffi COUNTRY. 263 

In England, the " May-pole" is erected in some 
choice and beautiful spot. It is decked with jessa- 
mines, and garlands of flowers, and honeysuckles 
hunff in beautiful clusters from its summit. The 
youth of both sexes join in the rural dance and 
song, and pastimes of the most guileless nature are 
enjoyed by the unsophisticated population of the 
rural districts. The "Queen" selected to preside, 
becomes the object of distinguished admiration, often 
bringing the most ambitious swain at her rustic feet. 
The influence of this beautiful season has been most 
salutary in England, but it declines with the chilling 
habits of gain, and as the country mawkishly apes 
the customs and fashions of the town. 

With us but few rural customs are known, and 
none are extensively observed among the rustic popu- 
lation. Yet the season of spring-time comes alike to 
all with welcome loveliness. The dreary winter has 
passed, and nature, throwing off the cheerless em- 
brace of cold and tempest, gladly opens her bosom 
to the warm dalliance of soft winds and yellow sun- 
shine. Man and beast alike feel the reviving influ- 
ence of the genial warmth which this season of youth- 
ful beauty diffuses. Vegetation revives, and the 
world teems with resuscitated vegetable, animal, and 
insect life. 

The green lawn brightens with its fresh verdure. 
The buds swell and open, and the foliage thickens 
upon the leafless forest-trees. Birds, those sweet 



26tt SELECTED EDITOKIALS. 

messengers of love, and objects of refined admiration, 
carol on iiouse-top and bush, and swell their gay 
notes even among the dust and clamor of the great 
city. Flowers spring up by the narrow walk, and 
the fragrance of the rose diifuses its rich perfume 
at every opening window. The honeysuckle throws 
out its tendrils and clings to whatever it finds to lean 
upon, while the woodbine climbs up the dizzy wall, 
as if in reach of light and a pure atmosphere ; and 
household plants, which have been hid from the rough 
wdnd of winter and the cold sunbeams, are now seen 
at the open lattice, turning their bright tints and lily 
hues to the warm sun, and drinking in the soft winds 
of spring-time. 

ASSOCIATIONS OF CHRISTMAS. 

The one hundred and twenty bells which hang in 
the turrets of Mafra castle, are now in joyful chime. 
That old cathedral bell of England, which at other 
times only wakes up to toll the death of kings, hath 
found a merry tongue. All the bells which swing in 
the countless towers of Christendom, are now pouring 
their music forth to hail this happy morn. Palace 
and cottage, the swelling city and the castled steep, 
catch and return the glad echoes. The young yield 
themselves to festive mirth, and the aged are happy 
again ere they depart this earth. The eyes of the 
dying light up ; and immortal hope cheers even the 
gloom of the grave. 



ASSOCIATIONS OF CHRISTMAS. 265 

This should be the happiest day in the year. It 
has a source of gladness all its own. This is not the 
greeting of friends, nor the gathering of childhood 
and age once more around the family hearth. It is 
not the interchange of kind wishes, or the mingling 
of glad voices over the banqueting board. It is not 
that bright promise which greets the glance of the 
father in the face of his boy, nor those smiles of infant 
beauty over which the mother hangs in transport; 
nor is it that sacred tie which binds a brother's pride 
to a sister's confiding love. 

It is a love beyond this, beyond all that human 
heart hath known. It was born far back in the depth 
of ages. 'No earthly splendor encircled its cradle ; 
no philosophy taught it lessons of wisdom ; no sys- 
tems of humanity matured it into higher strength. 
Yet at its word sorrow forgot its tears, and despair 
smiled — the lame leaped like the roe, the deaf listened 
to unwonted harmonies, the blind caught visions of 
transcendent beauty, the dumb shouted for joy, and 
the dead left the dark prison of the grave. 

But this love was unrequited ; it was persecuted 
and betrayed. The form in which it dwelt was man- 
gled on the cross, and yet it prayed for those who 
did the deed. Over its divinity death had no power ; 
it rose from out the gloom of the grave ; poured its 
light over the hills of Palestine, over the isles of 
Greece, and through the palaces of imperial Rome. 
The divinities of superstition saw it and fled ; while 

12 



2G6 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 

the dark systems of philosophy, like shadows at the 
break of morn, melted away in its light. 

Ages have passed away, nations disappeared, the 
storms of revolution and time swept over the wrecks 
of human greatness, but this divine light still streams 
on. It glows this day over the city of David ; it is 
hailed in the baronial halls of England ; it gleams 
amid the relics of Rome ; it kindles along the icy 
cliffs of Greenland ; it melts over the dark bosom of 
Africa ; it illumines the isles of the southern seas ; it 
pours its splendors along the banks of the Ganges. 

It is this light which cheers our temples ; w^hich 
sanctifies the hearth of our homes ; whicli fills this day 
the swelling city, the quiet hamlet, and the aisles of 
the deep forest with hymns of gratitude and devotion. 
This is that light which came from heaven ; that love 
w^hose mission of mercy flows to all lands, and which 
will yet reach the sorrows of every human heart. 

The voice of the angels, as in Bethlehem, still peals 
the anthem, Peace on earth and good-will to men ; 
and the cross of Christ stands now as it stood eighteen 
hundred years ago, unworn by age, and throwing its 
sacred light through the earth. Repentant multitudes 
through the past have turned to it, and forsaken the 
paths of guilt and error. Good men in all ages have 
lifted to it the eye of faith, and talked of its glories 
in their dying hour. Martyrs at the stake, the scaf- 
fold, and the block, have looked to it and forgotten 
their persecutors and their j)ains ! No wonder then 



EARLY RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 267 



that the angels watch'ed that hour when the Saviour 
was born — that they hymned, in seraphic numbers, 
that love which induced the Son of God to veil his 
divinity in mortal form, and which made him the 
hope and refuge of a lost world ! 

It is this event for which these Christmas bells are 
in chime. It is this event that has given such beauty 
and brightness to this morn. It is this event that has 
poured such a tide of happiness and love through the 
myriads of hearts that beat in Christian lands. May 
this happiness, dear reader, be thine ; may this love 
be the light of thy soul ; may this Saviour be to thee 
the chief among ten thousand. This choice and af- 
fection his fidelity will repay ; he will be thy stay 
and strength when other supports shall fail ; he will 
sustain thee when the lamp of life goes out, and gra- 
ciously remember thee in that day when he shall 
number up his jewels. 

EARLY RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

It has been argued by one of the popular female 
writers of the present age, that religion ought not 
to be taught in early life, lest the mature faculties 
should be trammelled or misguided by early impres- 
sions, and should thus fail of arriving at the truth. It 
seems a pity that one so learned as Miss Edgeworth 
should appear not to have discerned the distinction 
hetween personal religion and technical theology ; or, 
if she discerned it, she perhaps confounded the two 



268 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 

together, as the French infidels did Popery and the 
Christian religion, for the purpose of effecting the 
ruin of both. 

"We will not at present advocate the opinion that 
all children and youth should be made theologians. 
But now, and ever, we shall neither be afraid nor 
ashamed to maintain that the conscience of all, that 
spiritual censorium of whatever is salutary or perni- 
cious, that secret but heavenly monitor, should be 
rendered and kept as susceptible, active, and efficient 
as possible ; and that religious motives should be 
brought to act with all their power on youthful minds, 
to deter them from dangers which are fatal to so 
many, and to urge them onward to excellent attain- 
ments. 

It seems almost idle, on this subject, to appeal to 
Scripture, if it has ever been read. Its decision ap- 
pears to us full, clear, and unequivocal. If its nu- 
merous injunctions to teach its truths to the young, 
and to bring them up in the nurture and admonition 
of the Lord, mean what we suppose they must mean, 
there can be no dispute with regard to early reli- 
gious instruction, except with infidels, or those who 
merit the name by their perversion or neglect of the 
Bible. But with such we are willing to argue briefly 
on other than Scriptural grounds. 

In the first place, then, we assert, without fear of 
contradiction, that in communities where the Bible is 
a common book, for every young person that is in- 



EARLY RELIGIOrS INSTRrCTION. 269 

jnred by error, superstition, fanaticism, or moroseness, 
derived from early religious impressions, there are 
tens and hundreds that are far more injured for the 
want of seasonable religious instruction. What are, 
in fact, the great sources of vice and ruin to the 
young in such communities ? Who ever heard of 
religion, pure or erroneous, amidst their scenes of 
idleness, quarrelling, gambling, drinking, revelry, 
drunkenness, prodigality, and debauchery, except 
when it sounds a secret note of alarm, through 
an accusing but stifled conscience? It will be a 
new era in the history of such communities, when 
these ruinous irregularities can be ascribed to the 
errors, and not to the want of early religious instruc- 
tion. 

The actual evils, then, of religious mistake, under 
the advantages which we enjoy, are no more to be 
compared to the evils which religion is designed and 
calculated to prevent and remedy, than a cold or 
headache to the pestilence. It is proposed, however, 
to substitute wordly considerations for the mighty 
power of religious motives ; as if they had not been 
tried before ; as if the world were reforming too 
rapidly ; as if the furious horse, even while he is 
bursting through the barriers of brass and shattering 
curbs of steel, may be considered already mild 
enough to be led by a hair, or confined by hedges 
of poppies ; as if the temptations of the age may be 
warded by a shield of bulrushes, and rampant nature 



270 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 

in the blood and brains of youth may be checked 
and controlled by curbs of tinsel. 

We look at the tests of experience. We look at the 
actual condition of society. We have no respect for 
those Utopian schemes which are not at all adapted 
to that condition, but to the imaginary condition of 
an imaginary people. We have thus far advocated 
early religious instruction, merely for the sake of 
worldly benefits and worldly advantages. We have 
not taken into the account the infinite importance of 
preparing, in due season and in a proper manner, for 
a certain and unchangeable eternity. 

We slight mere worldly motives, in training the 
young, not only on account of their comparative in- 
efficacy, but on account of their actual tendency, as 
it is very often exhibited. Fashion and custom are 
the almost universal powers of worldly principalities ; 
and it need not be told how despotic is their sway 
among worldly motives, nor how often they are even 
hostile to the purity of virtue, the correctness of taste, 
and the excellence of character. 

Besides, the youthful heart is apt to aspire to mere 
greatness : it may ba greatness of merit or greatness 
in crime ; and it naturally pants no more to emulate 
a Solon or a Daniel, than a Tamerlane or Bonaparte. 
Though it is seen that the indulgence of vicious pro- 
pensities is in general a hindrance to great attain- 
ments, yet as there are some excej)tions to this gen- 
eral rule, and as each fancies himself one of the num- 



CUSTOMS AT FUNEEALS. 271 



ber, lie is not unlikely to endeavor to make his way, 
through the recklessness of moral restraints, to the 
distinction which he desires. Thus, for one chance 
of guilty eminence, he runs a thousand of wretched 
debasement. 

If these views are correct ; if there is an obligation 
resting somewhere to bring information and motives 
from the eternal world to bear upon the movements 
of the youthful mind, and to aid in the formation of 
the youthful character, it doubtless rests especially on 
those to whose care they are intrusted, in the event- 
ful and often dangerous connections and transitions 
of colleges, schools, and academies ; where, separated 
from the restraints and happy influence of home, 
they are hastening to a moral and intellectual matu- 
rity, and putting forth a profusion of bloom which 
many a mildew threatens to blight, and many a cor- 
rupting contagion may turn to excrescence or bring 
to premature decay. 

CUSTOMS AT FUNERALS. 

FAsmoN obtrudes itself even at the threshold of the 
grave. Customs have been established which often 
give pain to the sober. Yet they must be observed 
by the most discreet. When a friend dies, the dwell- 
ing of the departed should not become the resort of 
the curious or vacant crowd, l^one but the most in- 
timate of the family circle should presume to ask ad- 
mittance. Quietness is essential to absorbing grief, 



272 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 

and strange faces pain hearts which are wrung with 
bitterness and anguish. We would dispense with all 
the machinery of preparation, where tailors, niantua- 
makers, and milliners congregate, to talk gossip and 
speculate upon dress and the latest fashions. There 
is in all these hurried and jarring operations, where 
the dead lies untombed, a mockery of woe. 

Private funerals are most impressive. They are in 
accordance with the sensitive feelings, which shun 
contact with observation, when bleeding from com- 
plicated wounds. Funerals should be simple, unos- 
tentatious, not disfigured with pomp, and parade, and 
nodding plumes, in long procession. The shocking 
mummery of hired mourners, seen in an array of 
empty carriages, whether bipeds or quadrupeds, 
should be rejected as an abomination. The religious 
exercises should be condensed, comprehensive, and 
suitably fitted to the place, the person, and the occa- 
sion. The simple prayer of aifection at the burial of 
a virtuous man, in a village grave-yard, is more touch- 
ing and impressive than all the regal pomp and mer- 
cenary dis]3lay thrones can command. We would 
that the lifeless remains should be deposited in the 
grave with simplicity and reverence, with the entire 
absence of heartless show and empty pageantry. This 
is in accordance with chastened taste. Certainly they 
have the sanction of Christianity. 



PROVINCE OF SABBATH-SCHOOLS. 273 

PROVINCE OF SABBATH-SCHOOLS. 

The modesty of the Sabbath-school institution 
brought upon it at first the indifference of some — the 
contempt of others. But there were those who had 
the wisdom to perceive that merit does not always 
consist in noise and parade, and who, overlooking 
the comparative insignificance of the institution, and 
fixing their eyes on remote results, found in it an 
importance which appealed to their deepest sympa- 
thies, and warranted their most strenuous efforts. 
They saw consequences flowing from this institution 
which involved the highest interests of society ; they 
determined by self-denial and indefatigable exertions 
to sustain it, and for years plied their humble task 
with the patience and zeal of the martyr. No orator 
lifted an eloquent voice in eulogy of their sacrifices 
and efforts ; no poet rolled their silent triumphs 
through his applauding numbers ; yet they went on 
with unfaltering constancy and firmness. Such cour- 
age and perseverance show that piety has within it- 
self that which can dispense with the stimulants of 
human applause. 

They who are engaged in giving instructions in 
the Sabbath-school are molding the very elements of 
society ; they are filling the future with the living 
monuments of their own virtue. They are training 
for posterity the advocates of piety and patriotism, 
whose influence will be felt in the undisclosed des- 
tinies of this nation. They are fashioning for a 
12^ 



274 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 

brighter sphere spirits over whom death and the 
grave have no power. 

It is this living and acting for the future that dig- 
nifies and ennobles life ; it is this supreme reference 
to interests which shall quicken when we are dead, 
that invests our conduct with abiding greatness ; 
and this is the homage which this nation owes every 
individual who is submitting to the self-denying la- 
bors of the Sabbath-school. The most retired female 
in these nurseries of morality and religion is touch- 
ing a string that will vibrate when all the harps of 
mortal minstrelsy are silent ; she is lighting a taper 
that will burn when suns expire ; she is laying a 
train of influences which will move on when the 
schemes of the profoundest politician shall have 
reached their utmost limit. 

There is, in our opinion, no institution upon earth 
so humble in its pretensions, and, at the same time, 
so commanding in its effects, as that of the Sabbath- 
school. It exists among us without noise, operates 
without parade, and is accomplishing the most stu- 
pendous results without any of the showy appen- 
dages that usually accompany a great enterprise. It 
is like a stream which has no cataracts to astonish us 
with their magnificent thunder, but which winds 
along in the tranquil valley, asserting its existence 
only in the life and verdure which appear along its 
course. 



THE FOKCE OF PARENTAL EDUCATION. 275 

THE FORCE OF PARENTAL EDUCATION. 

The parent should never resign his child to the 
influence of chance, and do nothing for him because 
he cannot do every thing. He can aid in the devel- 
opment of his faculties ; he can turn the current of 
feelings into suitable channels ; he can Hx his attention 
on worthy objects. He can present examples of sub- 
lime eminence in poetry, and tempt the wing of his 
fancy towards heaven ; he can pour the impassioned 
language of the orator on his ear, and waken his 
heart to the majesty of eloquence ; he can spread be- 
fore him the results of science, and rouse his curios- 
ity ; he can echo the language of the dying patriot, 
and kindle a love of country; he can call up the sen- 
timents of the martyr to virtue, and inspire a venera- 
tion for exalted goodness. These young sentiments 
he can nourish ; he can plant them as vigorous 
shoots deep in the soul ; he can twine them with the 
roots of every principle in his moral and intellectual 
being ; and, if the harvest does not equal his reason- 
able expectations, his withered hopes will at least 
find consolation in the consciousness of duties dis- 
charged. 

In the power of habit, however, he has a strong, 
though conditional pledge of success. This myste- 
rious power, by uniting itself with the tenderness of 
our nature, lays the foundation for improvement, and 
becomes the guarantee of exalted excellence ; or it 
hastens our progress to ruin, and binds us over to ir- 



276 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 

retrievable sorrow. We may be insensible to its 
transforming power, and dream only of its imbecil- 
ity ; but when tlie re very of our dream is past, we 
shall find that under its subtle energy our tenden- 
cies, whether good or bad, have been strengthened ; 
that our characters have become more fixed, and 
that we are nearer the illustrious limit which mor- 
tality has afiixed to human excellence ; or nearer 
that inglorious grave, where we can hope to escape 
shame and contempt only in the forgetfulness of 
mankind. 

The parent may gaze with prying intensity upon 
his infant boy — catch eagerly every expression that 
breaks from his undissembling features — watch the 
gathering intimations of intelligence, and the bright- 
ening dawn of reflection; he may discover in his 
coimtenance a resemblance to that of men who have 
been eminent in genius, learning, and patriotism ; 
and he may fancy that he has ascertained what age 
will do for this young object of his solicitude ; but it 
is mere fancy — aside from the influence he can exert 
on his education, he can form no rational conjecture 
respecting the future character of his child." 

For aught he can tell, the diflicult sciences may 
lie beyond the grasp of his intellect, the regions of 
poetry soar beyond the reach of his genius, and the 
political creed of his nation lie beyond the extent of 
his comprehension ; or the dark lineaments of vice 
may one day creep over that countenance — the deep 



JOHN QUmCY ADAIklS. 27' 



shadows of unbridled passion cast over that brow, or 
the weight of accumulated sorrows crush that heart 
which now beats joyfully to his clasping hand. He 
may, indeed, realize his glorious hopes in the future 
happiness, the moral and intellectual elevation of his 
child ; but these are to be the result of circumstances 
over which he has so limited a control, that he can- 
not calculate on it with assurance. 

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

We were in the Hall of the House of Eepresenta- 
tives, when the concerted attack of the South and 
West on the old statesman of Massachusetts unrolled 
its thunder. It was fierce and terrific; it seemed 
to embody the bursting force of long accumulated 
wrath. It came down with a shock that took away 
men's breath. It for a time overpowered even sym- 
pathy, and left the victim of its vengeance silent 
and solitary under the appalling crime of perjury 
and treason. The silence which followed was like 
that which invests the verdict of a jury awarding 
death ! 

In this silence the old statesman slowly rose from 
his seat, feeble under the weight of years ; the dim 
light of the Hall falling faintly on his bald head, 
and touching the few gray hairs that remained. He 
stood there the representative of the past ; the sur- 
vivor of a generation now gone ; and his own step 
only lingering ere it should bear him to the silent 



278 SELECTED EDITOKIALS. 

assemblage of the dead. He was calm ; passion 
was still ; a sense of wrong and a consciousness of 
right shed over him an air of solemn dignity and 
repose — 

" His look 
Drew audience and attention still as night, 
Or summer's noontide air." 

The old man knew his strength, and where it lay. 
A few bold strokes at constitutional law, and the 
principles involved in our great charter of freedom, 
and light flashed forth : the dark accusations of his 
opponents melted away like vapor at the rising sun. 
He now stood as one on a lofty rock from which the 
clouds have passed, challenging himself the spirits 
of the departing storm. 

To his accuser from the West, who had been 
seduced into the position of a prosecutor by false 
friends, he was somewhat lenient. Still, he swej^t 
away his legal pretensions, and left his judicial 
claims only that bewildered respect inspired by his 
other qualities. The pity reserved for the accused, 
strayed off through an unexpected channel to meet 
the wants of the accuser. 

To his accuser from the South he was less lenient, 
as his attack had flown obviously from the most 
malicious motives. Fastening his steady eye upon 
him, he said — ^There came into this House a few 
years since, a man stained with the crime of mur- 
der : his expulsion was proposed ; I threw myself 



JOHN QUmCY ADAMS. 279 

between that man and the execution of this purpose, 
declaring against the constitutional competency of 
this House to sit in judgment on the crime. This 
man now comes here, with the blood of a fellow- 
being still dripping from his garments, and charges 
me w^ith perjuyy and treason for having presented a 
petition ! Let him go and appease the shade of the 
murdered Cilley ; let him purge from his soul 

" The deep damnation of his taking off." 

Here he paused, when , pale and confounded, 

rose, and sought to escape responsibility through a 
deeper implication of his associates. He sought to 
heave the crime from his own breast upon that of 
others, and to effect this, violated all the obligations 
of personal friendship, all the sanctities of private 
confidence. Such is the honor of duelling when put 
to the test. 

We have noticed this scene, not for the purpose 
of casting odium on the accusers of Mr. Adams, but 
to bring out one great practical truth — the moral 
power of being in the right. It was this which 
gave the accused his strength, his defence, his vindi- 
cation. It was this sacred constitutional right of 
the constituent to petition his representative, which 
armed him against the most fearful odds and ren- 
dered him invincible. This rigJit is independent of 
abolition movements ; it derives not its b^-eath or 
being from that quarter. The slave question has 



280 SELECTED EDITOEIALS. 

only brought it to the test ; it will survive the ordeal 
and triumph. It will live, assert itself, direct opin- 
ion, and shape measures, when they who have bat- 
tled against it have moldered in their graves. 

We must come back again to the ways of our fore- 
fathers. We must select men of years, experience, 
and practical wisdom, as legislators. We must dis- 
miss young Hotspurs to the stumps and pot-houses 
from whence they came. Even, if sober in their 
habits, they must still tarry in Jericho till their 
beards are grown. Their youth, inexperience, noisy 
oratory, and sprouting ambition, are a burlesque on 
grave legislation. How we were ever weak enough 
to send them, is one of those problems in human 
folly which will never be explained. But there they 
are, and there they will remain till we supply their 
places with men better fitted to the station. 

Their situation is as much a subject of ridicule 
among themselves, as it is of humiliation to the pub- 
lic. They have one merit, at least, that of properly 
appreciating each other. No one mistakes his com- 
panion for a Solon. He knows full well where sound 
may pass for sense, and silly personalities assume 
the shape of sober reproof. They have wit sufficient 
to discover the faults of others, though not enough to 
detect their own. This partial sagacity age may 
perhaps mature into something better : they may 
then perhaps be returned to the places which they 
now occupy. But till then, it would be kindness to 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 281 



them, as well as a duty to the public, to allow them 
to remain at home. One old statesman like John 
Quincy Adams, can rout a hundred of them. He 
merely uses one portion of them as weapons with 
which to demolish the rest ; or he ties them together, 
like Sampson's foxes, with fire-brands in their tails. 

DANIEL WEBSTER. 

To be misrepresented, abused, calumniated, is the 
penalty which greatness pays for station. The same 
individual who is slandered in a public position, in 
a private one passes unharmed. Calumnies are like 
storms, striking with the greatest force the most ele- 
vated objects. 

Were Daniel "Webster a private citizen, or merely 
exercising his great powers at the bar, who believes 
that the slanders with which he is now assailed 
would have been set afloat ? Even if there had been 
just occasion, calumny would only have spoken in 
whispers ; but it is now open-mouthed and unscrupu- 
lous. It has at last, however, committed one of those 
excesses in which even calumny destroys itself. It 
had passed so long unrebuked, that, gathering impu- 
dence and assurance from previous impunity, it at 
last took a fatal stride, and perished in the enormity 
of the outrage attempted on the innocent. It was 
like a wild beast rushing at a man on the edge of a 
precipice, and which, missing its object, plunges 
itself over the steep verge and perishes in the abyss. 



282 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 



It has been our lot to spend not a few of our years 
in Washington city. We have there had an oppor- 
tunity of seeing how great men are made and how 
they are unmade. Tliere are three methods of de- 
stroying a man among the political cliques that an- 
nually assemble there. One is, by assailing his in- 
tellectual claims, and pouring affected contempt on 
the aid he can bring to a cause. Another is, by im- 
peaching his political principles, perverting their 
character, rendering them odious, and, if possible, 
infamous with the public. A third is, by undermin- 
ing his moral character, overthrowing his j)i'ivate 
virtues, and shuddering with affected horror over 
his unrelieved depravity. 

No man from any section of the country, or from 
the bosom of any party, ever went to Washington to 
occupy a commanding political position, who was 
not assailed through one or more of these three chan- 
nels. We challenge the individual who may ques- 
tion the correctness of this allegation, to find a soli- 
tary exception to its sw^eeping truth. Let him call 
to mind all the great names that have figured at the 
seat of Government, and designate, if he can, one 
who has not been attacked, abused, and slandered, 
in one of the three forms which we have named. 
Even Washington, he will find, did not escape jeal- 
ousy and reproach. 

Mr. Webster could not be reached through his in- 
tellectual claims, for they were known and confessed 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 2 S3 



of all men. He could not be successfully assailed 
through his political principles, for these, as exhibit- 
ed in the weightier actions of his life, were regarded 
as sound and patriotic. His private character, how- 
ever, remained as a medium of attack. This is what 
no public acts can thoroughly protect in any one : 
the visible cannot serve as a protection for the invis- 
ible — the known, for the unknown. Here, then, lay 
the great point of attack. 

Out of this unknown, monsters were formed to 
suit the most malevolent purpose, and then against 
these creations a constant flight of arrows were dis- 
charged, till, at last, a portion of the public, deceived 
and duped in the matter, began to believe in the 
reality of the objects against which this war of vir- 
tuous indignation was carried on. They who sped 
the shafts knew they were shooting at shadows ; or, 
rather, through shadows, at virtue, uprightness, and 
commanding worth. The arrows ever rebounded ; 
often wounding and killing those who threw them. 
But the wounded were bandaged, and the dead 
buried unseen and in silence. 

The man who may now believe the slanders 
heaped on Mr. Webster, and congratulate himself 
on his exemption from such faults, should he ex- 
change situations with that great statesman, might 
soon find his own character and claims crumbling 
away under the assaults of his adversaries. Per- 
sonal jealousy, party interest, and political rancor, 



284 SELECTED EDITOEIALS. 

would not spare him. He might appeal to his integ 
rity, his imcorruptecl honor, but his appeal would be 
in vain. The martyr at the stake might as well talk 
of that faith which led to his persecution, and for 
which the fagot has been lighted. If such would 
inevitably be our own fate, we should have a little 
charity for those who share it in our stead. This 
war on Mr. "Webster has been carried on longer than 
that which levelled the strength of ancient Troy. 
But the citadel of his fame still holds out ; bastion 
and tower remain. There it stands, and there it will 
continue to stand, through this and coming genera- 
tions. Time will hallow, but not impair its strength; 
while each departing year will cast upon it an imper- 
ishable garland ! 

DEATH OF GENERAL HARRISON. 

The President is no more ! He breathed his last 
at half past twelve to-night. He was aware of his 
approaching end ; anticipated it with composure and 
Christian resignation. It brought with it to him no 
terrors, no dismay, though it will fill multitudes with 
surprise and sorrow. The sudden and fatal termina- 
tion of his disease was apprehended more by himself 
than others. He retained his reason, with a good 
degree of vividness and force, to the last : his energies 
rallied at intervals, but were at last overpowered. 
He took leave of his family and Mends as one that is 
going on a journey, and expects soon to meet again 



DEATH OF GENEKAL HARRISON. 285 

those from whom he parts. The members of the 
cabinet were present, and received his last injunction. 
Tears fell from eyes that seldom weep. He died like 
a statesman and a Christian ; his last thoughts were 
for his country, his last hopes in his God. 

" You UNDERSTAND THE PRINCIPLES OF THE CoNSTITU- 
TlOisr ^YOU WILL SEE THAT THEY ARE FAITHFULLY CARRIED 

OUT," were the last w^ords uttered by William Henry 
Harrison. Overpowered by his disease, he had sunk 
into a state of apparent insensibility, but before this 
relapse, had requested that the Yice-President be 
sent for ; in his revery that followed he had, it would 
seem, imagined his request fulfilled, when emerging 
with sudden energy from this state, he fastened his 
eyes wildly on his supposed friend, and uttered the 
words which I have quoted; then sunk away and 
soon breathed his last ! 

His death has filled all hearts with grief and gloom. 
The event has come so suddenly that no one seemed 
prepared to meet it ; indeed it now seems more like 
some tragic dream than a mournful reality. Men 
can hardly persuade themselves that William Henry 
Harrison is dead. But, alas! it is true; and we 
must bow resignedly to this afflictive dispensation of 
an all-wise Providence. 

But one month, and what a change of condition in 
the man of our choice! How wide the extremes 
separated by this brief interval of time ! Then he 
stood forth encircled with the splendors of the in- 



2S6 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 

auguration, and the enthusiastic confidence of mil- 
lions. E'ow he lies in the silent embrace of death ! 
Thousands came to utter their congratulations, and 
invest him with the high robes of his ofiice. They 
will now come to pay the tribute of their tears, and 
wa^ap him in the dark pall of the hearse ! With him 
life, light, and a nation's love, are all exchanged for 
the perpetual night of the grave ! 

Men will long speak of his worth, and mourn his 
death ; but the tokens of their reverence and sorrow 
can never reach him. They who sought to darken 
his fair fame, and defeat his honorable ambition, will 
now relent, but their regrets can never ]3ass the stern 
barrier of his repose. The voice of eulogy, and the 
tones of accusation will fall alike unheard on the 
stillness of his tomb ! The flowers may spring there, 
the young tree put forth its green leaves, and the 
birds sing in its branches, but his senses are all sealed 
to their freshness and melody. The soldier will still 
rouse himself at the roll of the morning drum, but 
that rallying call will never more break the slumbers 
of his rest. With him the weapons of war are all 
laid aside, and the watch-fires have gone out ! When 
will it be morn in the grave ! 

He is gone ! the moral workman has been removed, 
but the principles which he has molded abide ; the 
torch has been quenched, but the lamp it has lighted 
still burns on ; the bow has been broken, but the 
arrow is sped and will reach its destination. William 



FrNEKAL OF PRESIDENT HARRISON. 287 

Henry Harrison is dead, but the light and influence 
of his virtues survive, and the moral elements of this 
nation will long show the evidences of their vigor 
and purity, as the western sky, when the sun has set, 
still betrays the glowing traces of the departed orb. 

From the pale relic that now awaits only the last 
sad tribute of our respect, an admonition comes to 
each and to all — " Be ye also ready, for in such an 
hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh." 
Shall that voice pass unheeded ? shall the accents of 
the dead be lightly regarded ? The w^eb may have 
left the loom that is to weave our shroud ; the tree 
may have left the forest that is to build our coffin ; 
before another sun goes down w^e may find a grave 
sunk across our path : beyond that grave we cannot 
go ; and the character which we carry with us down 
into its silent recesses, we carry with us to the tri- 
bunal of our God. 

FUNERAL OF PRESIDENT HARRISON. 

Washington, April 7, 1841. 

The funeral service for the deceased President was 
performed in the great saloon of the Executive man- 
sion. The coffin was placed in the centre ; in a wide 
circle around it were seated the members of the be- 
reaved family, the Vice-President and Cabinet, ex- 
President Adams, with the late Secretaries of State 
and War, the foreign ministers, the attending phy- 
sicians, the twentv-four pall-bearers, and the clergy. 



238 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 

The rest of the saloon was filled with ladies and gen- 
tlemen anxious to participate in the solemnities of 
the occasion. The service was read by the Eev. Dr. 
Halley of this city, out of the Bible and Prayer-book 
purchased by Gen. Harrison, for his private use, a 
few weeks since in this city. He found the mansion 
without either of these books, and his first business 
was to procure them. 

It is a singular circumstance, and pleasing as it is 
singular, that the last chapter which General Har- 
rison read in his Bible, is the one so much used in 
the burial service ; it is the 15th of the 1st of Cor- 
inthians. Had it pleased an all-wise Providence to 
spare the life of the deceased President, the Executive 
mansion would have presented a good examj^le of 
religious decorum and domestic piety. But for ends, 
mysterious to us, it has been ordered otherwise. It 
becomes us, without a murmur, to bow to this be- 
reavement. Our plans and purposes are the result 
of a knowledge that is dim and imperfect ; they are 
overruled by superior wisdom and goodness for our 
benefit. Bereavement and affliction often lay us 
under the deepest obligations to their Author. Pros- 
perity may make us gay, but adversity makes us wise, 
and sorrows sanctified make us good. It is the frui- 
tions of a higher state for which we should live ; the 
happiness of a better world for which we should be 
willing to resign the pleasures of this. 

This is a dark day ; dark in its asj)ect ; still darker 



FUNERAL OF PEESmENT HARKISOK. 2^ 

in its events. The clouds hang in heavy masses, and 
cast far and wide below their desponding shadows ; 
the city is veiled in gloom, every dwelling is dressied 
in the coronals of the grave. The vast multitudes 
that have assembled to witness the solemnities of the 
day, are wrapt in silent sorrow ; it is the stillness of 
an all-pervading grief for the departed — the voiceless" 
homage of man's heart to death. Only &e great 
river moves on its wonted way ; that still rolls to the 
ocean — an emblem of our eternal existence. 

The solemn service for the dead now fills the 
gloomy halls of the Executive mansion. In its dark 
saloons kneel the beauty of the city, the associates of 
the deceased, the renowned in the field, the forum, 
and pulpit, and the condoling dignitaries of other 
lands. Upon all falls a deep sense of bereavement, 
and a sad earnest of the time when they who weep 
will claim for themselves these last tokens of respect 
and sorrow. All are bound to the inevitable grave, 
and the revisions jof the judgment-bar. 

The body is borne in slow and solemn state from 
the portals of the mansion to the armed lines \ they 
open and receive it with presented arms. Then wakes 
from martial bands the deep anthem of the dead. 
Then peals aloud from steeple and tower the mono- 
tone of the funeral knell ; then rolls from tiie steps of 
the capitol the thunders of the minute-gum. 

The coffin, veiled in darkness, and wreathed wj^h 
that type of our immortality which blooms in the ever- - 

13 



290 SELECTED EDITORIALS. 

green, is lifted to the sable hearse. Amid the un- 
dying leaf lies the roll of the Constitution. Six milk- 
white steeds, each with its African groom in white, 
and all draped in mourning, are to roll the funeral 
car. The procession, stretching far away till dis- 
tance becomes dim, is formed. Flashing arms, glan- 
cing helmets, nodding plumes, the liveries of state, 
and banners in the dark symbols of grief, wave over 
all. The roll of the muffled drum, through the inter- 
vals of the column, gives the signal, and the long 
procession, with slow and measured tread, moves for- 
ward. It comes down the wide avenue which lies 
through the heart of the city. Every building that 
lines it is in mourning. The thousands that from 
pavement, porch, roof, and balcony watch its progress, 
are mute;- and every ear is turned to the solemn 
dii'oje of the dead. The sio^h of sorrow breaks from 
the oppressed heart ; tears fall from eyes that seldom 
weep. 

The tomb, on the living outline of the city, is at 
length reached ; the procession is suspended in its 
steps ; the body is borne from the funeral car to the 
silent cliaml)ers of its last receptacle ; a voice ascends 
clear and distinct over the silent multitude, uttering, 
"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; yea, 
saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors, and 
their works do follow them." The heavy door of the 
sepulchre returns upon its complaining hinges, closing 
in darkness the departed ; when the silence is again 



ME. CLAY AND MR. KING. 291 

broken bj the volleyed thunder of the last farewell — 
a prelude of that louder summons which will one day 
break up the sleep of the grave ! 

Thus rest in peace, and sacred trust, the remains 
of William Henry Harrison — beloved in life, honored 
in death, and embalmed in the grateful recollections 
of his country. May his mantle fall upon his succes- 
sor, and the nation realize the anxious bequest con- 
veyed in his dying injunction. 



MR. CLAY AND MR. KING. 

The reconciliation of these distinguished senators 
affords unalloyed pleasure to a large circle of personal 
and j)olitical friends. It is precisely the course which 
gentlemen, possessing a just sense of honor and per- 
sonal responsibility, would pursue. 'No man should 
hesitate to admit a wrong, or acknowledge an error, 
when it becomes apparent. To retreat from a bad 
position, which nothing but misunderstanding led 
one to assume, is not only virtuous, but an imperative 
duty. The language of menace and detraction which 
is used to such an alarming extent among the mem- 
bers of Congress, demands the serious attention of 
that body. Reformation and reform are needed in 
the legislative halls, at Washington, quite as much 
as economy is desired in the finances of the govern- 
ment. The rudeness and insults which are daily in 
vogue there, are subjects of fruitful offence every 



292 SELECTED EDITOEIALS. 

where, and are exceedingly painful to the minds of 
reflecting, and honest private citizens. 

The conciliatory course pursued by these gentle- 
men will have its influence, we confidently believe, 
in another way. It may lead smaller and more des- 
perate politicians to follow out an equally politic 
course when their honor is thought to be doubted 
or their characters impeached. One instance of 
virtuous forbearance between distinguished men, such 
as the case under consideration, will exert a pro- 
digious influence upon public sentiment. We hope 
it will do something to check the career of the cold- 
blooded duellist ; that public feeling may not be 
wounded, and the character of the country again 
outraged by the sanguinary deeds of members of 
Congress. The wrongs inflicted uj^on the moral sen- 
sibilities of the nation by the wanton sacrifice of Cil- 
ley, are not yet healed or forgotten. God grant that 
this species of fashionable butchery may no longer 
be tolerated by public sentiment, or enacted by those 
who lead in the great political and social improve- 
ments of the country. "We rejoice that the Execu- 
tive no longer smiles upon the barbarous jDi'actice of 
duelling. May we not hope that his frowns upon 
the ferocious custom will not only bring it into dis- 
pute in private life, but also brand it with infamy in 
elevated stations ? 



DEATH OF GENERAL JACKSON. 293 

DEATH OF GENERAL JACKSON. 

The intelligence of the death of General Jackson, 
which reached us yesterday morning, will produce, 
wherever it shall travel, no slight sensation. He was 
no common man. All the features of his mental 
and moral constitution were strongly marked. He 
would have possessed a striking individuality of 
character in any community. His virtues were never 
veiled by a shrinking modesty, and no hypocrisy 
ever disguised his faults. 

As a military leader, his courage and sagacity have 
never been questioned. He may have been impetu- 
ous, but he backed up his impetuosity with all the 
powers which he possessed. His strength lay not in 
the maturity of his counsels, but in the quickness of 
his sagacity, and the promptitude of his action. The 
qualities whicb crowned him with victory at 'New 
Orleans, would probably have covered him with dis- 
aster in the Eevolution. He had an iron endurance 
when action had commenced, but an uncontrollable 
impatience at the delay of a decision. If the beam 
trembled long on the level, he made a preponderance, 
and trusted the consequences to the energy of his 
conduct. 

As a statesman he was patriotic in his purposes, 
and extremely arbitrary in enforcing them. His 
opinions were rather the result of impulses than a 
calm comprehensive survey of facts. His generosity 
might be touched, but his will was inflexible. His 



294 SELECTED EDITOEIALS. 

determinations were never shaken by menace or de- 
feated by difficulties. He was a democrat in bis 
creed and in his social intercourse, and an irrespon- 
sible dictator in discharging his Executive functions. 

He regarded the constitution as the sacred ark of 
liberty, but interpreted for himself the inscription on 
the tables which it contained. He set his iron heel 
on the decisions of the Supreme Court, but forced a 
refractory state, at the point of the bayonet, to rever- 
ence the authority of that tribunal. He respectfully 
submitted his nominations to the Senate, but in the 
event of their rejection still kept the incumbent in 
place. He acknowledged the constitutional compe- 
tency of two-thirds of the popular branch of our na- 
tional legislature to pass a law which met with his 
official disapprobation, but effectually defeated it by 
retaining it in his possession. 

He overthrew, with Spartan perseverance, a na- 
tional bank, that might have been rechartered, had 
his prejudice been conciliated and not his power de- 
fied. He threw his political opponents from place, 
not to gratify personal hostility, but to appease the 
clamor of pretended friends. It was his crowning 
calamity, as a statesman, to have confided where he 
should have distrusted, and distrusted where he should 
have confided. 

As a citizen he was beloved and respected. He 
was as sincere in his friendships as he was undiguised 
in his hostilities. He was courteous alike to all. His 



DEATH OF GENERAL JACKSON. 295 

amenity never forsook him, unless in some paroxysm 
of anger, and this was transient. The heavens be- 
came clear again when the cloud had passed, and 
even before its thunder had ceased among the re- 
verberating hills. Even in his stormiest hours the 
memory of his departed wife would come over him, 
serene as the bow arching the tumult and terror of 
the cataract. His manifestations of the religious sen- 
timent shone out like stars between the broken rack 
of the sky. His last days were brightened with the 
steadfast hope of a happy immortality. He died 
with an unquenchable faith in the merits of the Ee- 
deemer. He will be remembered for his valor, for 
his iron force of character, and the Christian meek- 
ness in which he rendered back his being. He has 
left his impress on his age : an impress which time, 
disaster, and death will never efface. 



WALTER COLTON IN THE PULPIT. 



In this volume of Remains hitherto, and in the previous volumes, 
we have seen Mr. Colton as a traveller, a journalist, a poet, a 
satirist, and a moralizer. It is in place also to present him now 
as a sermonizer ; handling the deep things of God, holding forth 
the word of life, arguing with the reason, grappling with the 
conscience, addressing himself to the religious sensibilities of his 
fellow-men, and inviting them to Christ as a Christian minister. 

Mr. Colton never prepared a sermon for the press, nor was he 
in the habit of writing his discourses in full. An intimate friend 
and relative, who may be supposed to have known well his habits, 
says of him, that he very seldom read a sermon, and scarcely ever 
had the original manuscript about him. "Before going into the 
pulpit he almost invariably prepared, for the time, a new brief. 
That paper was torn up on leaving the pulpit ; and if he preached 
the same sermon on the next Sabbath, the brief was again writ- 
ten, occupying usually less than the space of half a sheet of 
letter-paper. His manner in the pulpit was always dignified 
and solemn. I never heard him there indulge in a quip or 
merry turn. In preaching he was as far from any thing like 
levity as any man I ever knew. There was in his matter and 
manner a something which chained and held the hearer." 

His sermons seem to have been logical in their construction, 
and eminently beautiful in their diction and illustrations ; and the 
impressions they left upon the hearer were always solemn. He 
was a close preacher, and came down at once upon the con- 
science and heart. He knew that sailors wanted a something 
that would pierce and probe, and his aim was to give that to 
them. He clung to the last to those principles of Christian be- 
lief often termed Puritan, wherein he had been trained in early 
13^ 



298 POWER AS A prp:aciier. 

life. He used the Episcopal service at the Naval Station, and on 
board the man-of-war, but for other reasons than any preference 
of his own. 

A clerical acquaintance in Philadelphia gives this testimony in 
regard to his preaching while there : " As religious worship was 
observed at the Naval Station only in the morning of the Sab- 
bath, Mr. Colton frequently preached for me in the afternoon or 
evening, and always to the gTeat acceptance and profit of the 
people of my charge. The train of his thoughts was always 
original and instructive ; his illustrations, beautiful and striking ; 
his style, chaste and simple ; and his applications deeply solemn 
and impressive." 

Respecting one of the sermons that follow here, it is proper for 
the Editor to add that it is the substance of that with regard to 
which Mr. Colton himself said, in a letter to his brother, that the 
most animating and gladdening thing that ever occurred to him, 
was when a lady of great influence in the South told him that 
her attention was first excited to personal religion by his sermon 
on the soul. " I would not," said he, " exchange that fact, and 
the results that followed in her case, for all the laurels which the 
most successful literary course could win." 

A long period of time after the delivery of another sermon a 
gentleman met and made himself known to him while travelling, 
who told him that the impressions made upon his mind by lis- 
tening to a discourse from him twenty years before, had never 
been effaced ; and that the practical effect of it he hoped would 
appear in a son then travelling with him, in whose education he 
had never lost sight of the principles illustrated in Mr. Colton's 
discourse. There is other evidence, also, of pleasing practical 
results from his preaching, which, if narrated, would give addi- 
tional value and interest to the specimens of his pulpit efforts 
which we now present. 



DIGNITY, DESTINY, AND DANGER OF THE SOUL. 



What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and 
lose his own soul ? What shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? — 
Mark viii. 36, 37. 

This interrogation of Christ involves topics of a 
deeply impressive interest. Tlie value of that soul, 
which can be contrasted with the whole world, must 
be of inconceivable magnitude. Though we may not 
be able to fathom the depths of this subject, yet we 
can sketch some of its more prominent features, and 
penetrate it sufficiently to understand the awful irp- 
port of the question presented in our text — " What 
shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world 
and lose his own soul ? What shall a man give in 
exchange for his soul ?" 

The value of the soul is partially developed in tJie 
extent of its powers. Here is an intellect that can 
grasp the mighty question, hold it steady and strong 
before its penetrating eye, unravel its intricacies, 
search through all its parts, measure its proportions, 
calculate its effects, and exult in its luminous con- 
clusion. Here is an intellect that can penetrate the 



300 THE REACH OF ITS POWERS. 

subtle sciences, render itself familiar with the deep 
and difficult objects of knowledge, establish trembling 
truth, overthrow inveterate error, eject old opinions, 
introduce new ones, conquer prejudice, secure confi- 
dence, and bind the faith of men to unwelcome ob- 
jects. Here is an intellect that can sway human 
conduct, kindle the brightest hopes, awaken the 
darkest fears, stir the strongest passions, rouse the 
mightiest energies, move a whole nation as by one 
impulse, and thus accomplish what may exhaust the 
strength of millions. 

Here is a memory that treasures up each new 
discovery, each fresh experience, — embalming them, 
binding them together, rendering our existence a 
continuous chain, bringing back upon us in age the 
freshness of youth ^ restoring to us the joyous feelings, 
the happy incidents, the ardent friendships, the ro- 
mantic devotions of our earlier years, supplying us 
in our desolate hours with themes of thought, bring- 
ing before us vanished objects, and beguiling us of 
present loneliness and sorrow by ten thousand recol- 
lections in which tfee past still lives in all its original 
beauty and freshness. 

Here, too, is an imagination impatient of the earth, 
spm-ning each grovelling sphere, full of lofty aspira- 
tion and daring curiosity ; it renders itself familiar 
with all that is wild, and beautiful, and sublime in 
nature ; it visits the sunny vale and the thunder- 
searred cliff, the bleating field and the howling wilder- 



THE RANGE OP ITS AFFECTIONS. 301 

ness, the quiet spring and the tempest-stricken ocean, 
the populous city and the trackless desert, the ray- 
less cavern and the glittering heaven. It walks with 
the living, it communes with the dead ; rides upon 
the tempest, and is familiar with the lightning ; looks 
beyond all that is real, creates other worlds, peoples 
them, sends through them the voice of health and 
gladness, the shout of rivers, the roar of ocean, the 
solemn anthem of a mighty creation kindled into the 
love and worship of the superior, all-presiding Intel- 
ligence. 

Here, too, are aftections which bind us by a chain of 
sympathy not only to real, but to imaginary objects. 
We smile in the hall of festivity, and weep at the 
couch of pain ; we talk lightly in the social circle, 
and tremble at the grave of the stranger. We hang 
delighted over the cradle of infant life, and linger 
around age for its last lesson. We follow the joyful 
youth to the nuptial altar, and the weeping captive 
to his dungeon and his chains. We shout the patriot 
victor to the rich harvest of his triumj)hs, and wail 
with indignant sorrow over the rack of the holy 
martyr. We go beyond reality, and spread OTir affec- 
tions and sympathies over ideal existences. The 
loveliness with which poetical rhapsody invests its 
favorite character, kindles the deepest feelings of our 
hearts, and makes us sigh to gaze on this vision of a 
romantic dream. The virtue, the suffering, the pa- 
tience in which the melancholv mind embodies its 



302 niMORTALITY ITS CEOWNING GEM. 

feelings, extorts our waraiest tears, and chains us up 
to fictitious sorrow, as if we were bending over the 
couch where mortal sufferance exchanges earth for 
heaven. 

The majestic elevation which a lofty soul gives to 
its master-creation, imposes a veneration upon us 
such as would become humanity in the presence of 
an angel. We move around among these ideal ob- 
jects, admiring, weeping, trembling, exulting, with 
as much intensity as if they w^ere the living substance 
of our nature. These are a portion of the proj^erties 
inherent in the human soul. An intellect of all- 
grasping and all-subduing energy, an imagination of 
tireless and limitless power and curiosity ; a memory 
vigilant and faithful to the countless objects of its 
trust ; sympathies and afiections which spread them- 
selves in a radiant mantle through the universe. 

But were the soul, with all its transcendent powers, 
destined to corruption in the grave, we should regard 
it only as the passing vision of a majestic dream. 
"We might sigh that aught so glorious should be so 
frail, and even supplicate inexorable sovereignty for 
a longer date. But though the soul inhabits a house 
of clay, the tenant survives its tabernacle, and will 
flourish vigorous and young when its dwelling is 
formless dust. Yes, the stars may fall, the sun ex- 
pire, the heavens be palled in endless night, but the 
soul shall emerge from this vast tomb radiant in the 
immortal image of its Maker. This imperifehable 



VASTNESS OF ITS ETERNAL DESTINY. 



303 



property of the soul — its immortality— gives it a value 
that outweighs ten thousand worlds. Who can tell 
what it may experience, what it may enjoy, what 
heights of knowledge it may attain, what depths of 
wisdom it may penetrate, when this glorious universe 
is a rayless wreck ! 

There is something in the idea of eternal duration 
and an endless progression of improvement which 
fills the mind with amazement, and overpowers the 
giant thought that struggles to comprehend it. The 
conception stands before us like some stupendous 
mountain, swelling into the -heavens, and becoming, 
as we approach it, measureless and illimitable in all 
its proportions. "We gaze, tremble, and sink into the 
dust! What arm shall raise us? what Almighty 
power come to our aid ? Stand up, thou amazed, fal- 
tering spirit, it is thy destiny ! Though man cannot 
adequately comprehend it, nor ocean with her ten 
thousand voices of living thunder express it, yet it is 
thy destiny ! 

We can conceive of numbers upon numbers till we 
have told the stars, counted the leaves upon the 
forest tops, and calculated the sands that spread the 
shore of ocean, but thy years, oh eternity 1 thy dura- 
tion, thou immortal spirit, has only begun where our 
last numbers end ! We only penetrate the surface of 
this fathomless theme. We see only the first link of 
an endless chain. We catch a glimpse only of that 
great future where space and splendor vie in the 



304 ITS CAPACITY FOE IMPROVEMENT. 

prodigality of their gifts. But we discover enough 
to convince us that its immortahty is the crowning 
gem in the coronet of the soul. This is its throne, 
sceptre, and diadem of dominion. Without it, in- 
stinctive nature might almost sport with its preten- 
sions ; with it, angels would scarcely stoop to envy, 
such is now the dignity, destiny, and worth of the 
soul. 

If the human intellect, with all the clogs and re- 
straints upon it incident to its connection with the 
body, is capable of the prodigious improvement in 
knowledge we observe here, what may not be ex- 
pected when these obstructions are removed — when, 
passionless and pure, above prejudice, debility, ex- 
haustion, it apj)lies its powers to subjects which the 
highest intelligences in heaven ponder with intense 
interest ! How may it not ascend from theme to 
theme, from one sublime truth to another, in a glori- 
ous endless climax ! 

And the memory, if with the effacing agencies 
which exist here it can still retain the traces of pass- 
ing events, how will its mental tablature kindle into 
characters of clearest significance, when the search- 
ing light of heaven plays upon its imperishable form I 
Here, like a troubled pool, it reflects only the flowers 
that bloom upon its brink ; there, like a tranquil lake 
spread wide and clear beneath ineftable splendors, it 
will mirror forth its unfading resemblances. 

And the imagination, if it can wing the heaven 



ITS FUTURE EMPLOYMENTB. 



305 



and tempt the uncreated here, how will it exult when 
this mortal weight is laid aside, and when it is braced 
hj a pinion that can never grow weary ! How will it 
range the dread magnificence of that heavenly region, 
where all the loveliness and grandeur of the universe 
is expressed ! How will it wander back to the ruins 
of this world, and extort from every faded fragment 
some recollections deeply interesting to its celestial 
companions ! How will it wander down the track of 
man's redemption, weeping, wondering, and wor- 
shipping along this highest achievement of the Al- 
mighty ! 

And the affections and sympathies of the soul, if 
they can spread themselves through the heavy at- 
mosphere which weighs upon all things here, how 
will they wander, kindle, and expand in that world 
where all is buoyancy, light, life, health, and holy 
transport ! How will they circulate among that con- 
genial, countless multitude that have been redeemed 
out of every kingdom, and clime, and tongue under 
heaven ! How will they mingle in that universal 
chorus, that like the sound of many waters, shall 
pom- in a tide of ceaseless harmony down the lapse 
of eternity ! 

What a glorious vision of intelligence, creative 
power, and boundless enjoyment does the ransomed 
spirit present ;— all mental darkness, depression, and 
satiety removed ! Glod alone can tell its elevation 
and bliss. Well might our Saviour exclaim, " What 



30G MEASUREMENT OP ITS VALUE. 

shall it profit a man, if lie shall gain the whole world, 
and lose his own soul ? What shall a man give in 
exchange for his soul ?" If language can have mean- 
ing, this is full of it. It not only embodies the im- 
port of every deduction of enlightened philosophy, 
of every revelation of deepest interest from Jehovah, 
but it is sustained by sacrifices and sufferings in 
which the Son of God himself expires. If the faith 
of the martyr inspires us with confidence from his 
steadfastness amid persecutions, what shall we say of 
His declarations, whose words are oracles written in 
his own blood! What shall we say to His assev^- 
erations who appeals to his own omniscience for 
his authority, and to his dying agonies for his sin- 
cerity ! 

It is not the profound opinion of a deeply medita- 
tive philosopher ; it is not the solemn conviction of 
a mitred priest ; nor is it the awful disclosures of 
an inspired prophet, that here arrest our attention. 
It is the word of the King of kings, the Lord of lords, 
Christ our Almighty Redeemer, expressed in his own 
person, and under circumstances impressive enough 
to wake the dead : What shall it profit a man if he 
shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? — 
what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? 
Plad this language been uttered in heaven, and rolled 
down in thunder upon this earth, it would not have 
the power which it now has, coming as it does from 
the lips of Him who has sealed its tremendous pur- 



WHAT HAS BEEN DONE FOE IT. 307 

port by anxieties, sacrifices, and sufferings unparal- 
leled in the records of humanity. 

Had our Saviour commissioned an angel to im- 
press upon the inhabitants of this world a sense of 
the soul's value, had he delegated the highest seraph 
to bleed and die in attestation of his divine commis- 
sion, it were all insignificant, compared with what 
has actually transpired on Calvary. It is Deity 
stooping to a human form, subjecting himself to the 
infirmities of our nature, enduring sorrows, encoun- 
tering ingratitude and persecution, warning and ex- 
horting inconsiderate man, weeping over his obsti- 
nacy and blindness, kneeling in the Garden of Geth- 
semane, wearing a crown of thorns, fainting up the 
height of Calvary, hanging on the cross, bleeding 
and dying for man, — it is Deity in these attitudes 
that impresses us with a sense of the soul's high val- 
ue. How inconceivable, then, must be the worth of 
that object which could induce such humiliation and 
suffering on the part of the Son of God ! 

Man may lay down his life for the accomplish- 
ment of a benevolent purpose, and it may still be a 
question whether the object were worthy of the sac- 
rifice ; but he who had created the soul knew the 
extent of its powers and capacities, what it might 
suffer, what it might enjoy ; and it was this knowl- 
edge, united with a compassion of exhaustless depths, 
that brought the Sovereign of life into the manger 
of Bethlehem, and laid him a mangled martyr in the 



SOB ITS DEADNESS TO EEDEEMING LOVE. 

grave. And he that cannot perceive, in the sacri- 
fices and sufferings of his dying Redeemer, evidence 
of the soul's value which no language can express, 
must be dead to the strongest conclusions of human 
reason, and to the common sympathies of our nature. 
The very rocks might reproach his apathy, and the 
madness of hell were sanity in contrast with his. 

And yet, to the astonishment of devils, there is 
scarce a tale of fabulous distress or imaginary sor- 
row, that will not awaken a stronger sympathy in the 
breast of many, than this story of redeeming love ! 
They turn away from this heart-melting reality, and 
shed their tears over the morbid pages of a sickly 
dream. When w^e attempt to impress the value of 
the soul by considerations connected with the suffer- 
ings of Christ, we make as little impression as shad- 
ows cast upon marble. The reason of this is found 
in their aversions to the theme. Would they but fol- 
low our Saviour through Jerusalem, would they but 
pore over his character with that steadfastness of at- 
tention, which they bestow upon the hero of a bewil- 
dering fiction, their hearts must melt into sorrow and 
veneration. If not, the dead were only one remove 
from them in coldness and insensibility. 

But we turn from this melancholy topic of man's 
insensibility to a consideration of his danger. The 
soul is in imminent danger of being lost ! Though 
of such transcendent value, that the w^hole world 
dwindles in the comparison, yet it is in fearful jeop- 



ITS ENSLAVEMENT TO SIN. 309 

arcly of ruin. In its natural state, the soul is unfit 
for heaven, and its salvation can only be the result 
of the sovereign grace of God, united with the most 
intense and laborious warfare on the part of man. 
Even a resolution oai the subject of personal religion 
is not the easiest purpose of an individual, but the 
carrying of that resolution into effect will leave no 
faculty unexhausted. 

'No man who has not vigorously attempted the 
great work of his soul's salvation, has any adequate 
conception of the difficulties with which he must con- 
tend. Could he be left alone to this work, could the 
restraints of the world for once be removed, the last 
retarding influence suspended, he would, neverthe- 
less, falter and faint in the overcoming task. But he 
will not be left alone. The world has a strong at- 
tachment for him : it is at enmity with God, at va- 
riance with the high interests of the soul, and will 
endeavor to counteract every effort he may make to 
alienate himself. 

This conflict with the world is the first obstacle 
Avith which the awakened sinner has to contend ; and 
it is so formidable, that thousands, after a few unsuc- 
cessful efforts, resign themselves to the calamity of 
their condition. They are the slaves of the world, 
of its opinions, forms, maxims, pursuits. A more 
subduing, crushing vassalage never existed. It 
weighs upon every faculty of the man. Thousands, 
having caught some indistinct glimpses of the free- 



310 THE DIFFICULTY OF ITS DELIVERANCE. 

dom of the sons of God, resolve to possess it, — strug- 
gle, feel the weight of their chains, and expire. 

But suppose this firet mighty step to be taken: 
suppose the sinner has got clear of the world ; that 
he is at liberty to devote his entire powers, as con- 
science and reason may dictate ; and suppose he does 
consecrate all his faculties to the work of saving his 
soul — he will, nevertheless, reel beneath the magni- 
tude of the undertaking. He has got to recall his 
past life, to go back in his memory through the pain- 
ful recollection of his misdeeds, and break the im- 
penetrable shield in which sin has incased his heart ; 
he must go down into its sickly depths, wind through 
its dark labyrinths ; bring forth every lurking failing, 
every wicked disposition ; expose them to the light 
of heaven, and put them to death beneath the Cross. 

This work itself is enouo-h to shake the firmest 
purpose. It never would be accomplished, nor even 
attempted, did not the consequences of a failure in- 
volve eternal misery. Were there any alternative 
left the sinner but heaven or hell, he would never 
become a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus. As 
it is, he will slumber on till his salvation is a mir- 
acle. Multitudes are never roused till the flames of 
the bottomless pit receive them. They dream away 
life under the visionary hope of awaking in heaven, 
as if salvation were their rightful inheritance. They 
are as much at ease as if they expected to glide 
as gently into the Christian character as a tranquil 



THE FEAKFULNESS OF ITS STUPIDITY. 811 

Stream floats to its silent bourne, or as a star moves 
through the different stages of its serene ascension in 
the heaven. 

To alarm these men, to make them feel their dan- 
ger, and to rouse them to action, is beyond the power 
of human effort. Unassisted by divine energy, you 
would as soon invest the tenant of the shroud with 
the attributes of life. Could you condense into one 
sentence every startling sound and sentiment in the 
universe, and j)our it in a rending cadence upon the 
hearing of the stupid sinner, he would still slumber 
on in the depths of his untrembling repose. Such is 
the palsying apathy which sin spreads over the sen- 
sibilities of our moral nature. 

The source of this stupidity is found in the wilful 
ignorance of the sinner. He courts a voluntary 
blindness to his true character. Let him but see his 
heart as God sees it, and as he will see it in the day 
of his last account, and he w^ould loathe and abhor 
himself : his self-complacency would dissolve in tears 
and shame. But he blinds his eyes to this loath- 
some spectacle ; or he throws around it the illusive 
coloring of his fancy. He will not examine it ; he 
will not probe its ulcers. He prates of its soundness 
when it is diseased to its inmost sense ; he talks of 
life in the midst of death, and feels secure of heaven 
on the brink of perdition ! 

You perhaps see the peril of his situation ; you de- 
termine that he must and shall be aroused from his 



312 ITS POWEES OF EESISTANCE. 

false security; you repeat in his hearing all the 
alarming declarations of Scripture ; you apply the 
high and holy requisitions of the divine law to his 
heart ; you show him in the light of revelation this 
body of sin and death ; you point him to that fount- 
ain which cleanseth from sin, to that Spirit which 
helpeth our infirmities, to that Saviour before whom 
the humble and contrite never weep and tremble in 
vain ; you show him the brevity and uncertainty of 
life, the magnitude of the work before him, the mo- 
mentous consequences that are pending, — and you 
beseech him by all that is dear to himself, by all that 
is due to his Maker, to immediate, strenuous, deci- 
sive action. But your admonitions and appeals have 
as little effect upon his listless senses, as whispers on 
the ear of the dreamer. 

This impenetrable apathy is not confined to a few 
darkly conspicuous for their hardihood, but it spreads 
itself over all who have not received Christ in the 
meekness of a broken, contrite spirit. It settles 
down on every sinner in this assembly, stifiing every 
ray that would divinely illuminate the heart, and 
blasting in the bud every sentiment of a holier and 
sublimer nature. It nullifies the most powerful ex- 
hibitions of Gospel truth ; prevents the access of the 
hovering, quickening Spirit ; blinds its possessor to 
the certainty of his destruction ; wra^ps the conscience 
in the torpors of moral death ; and becomes, as it 
deepens, the grave of the soul ! 



THE GREATNESS OF ITS DANGER. 313 

Say, then, is not this soul in danger ? "What voice 
can rouse it from its fatal slumber? What power 
recall it from its untimely grave? "When will it 
come forth to the light of heaven, and to the quick- 
ening beams of the Sun of Eighteousness ? When 
will it be able to stand erect in renovated life and 
imperishable beauty ? How shall it gather to itself 
this better purpose, nomish it into energy, and sus- 
tain it unshaken to the last? How shall it look 
steadily at its own pollutions ; its utter unfitness for 
heaven ; its jDeril in this state of alienation from 
Christ ? How shall it break up its connections with 
the world, part with its earthly possessions, renounce 
its cherished friendships, abandon its idol gods, 
feel its helplessness and ruin, loathe itself, abhor its 
past life, and, renouncing every other refuge, every 
other hope, betake itself to the humbling provisions 
of the Gospel — to the Cross of Christ — and there, 
with penitence, contrition, and shame, weep over its 
guilt and degradation? 

Oh, ye who trifle with the warnings of inspiration, 
and sport with the anxieties of the awakened sinner ! 
your levity is amid the graves of thousands — it is ech- 
oed from each coffin's lid ! You presume where others 
perished, and are gay where others despaired ! You 
are full of presumption and reckless mirth, where all 
your predecessors have left the bleeding fragments of 
their best hopes ! — ^you are as one that sleeps at mast- 
head, or slumbers on the plunging verge of the cataract ! 

14 



314 THE EUIN OF THE SOUL TOTAL. 

The destruction of which the soul is in danger is 
total — extending to all its powers and capacities. 
Were all its other faculties at an immense remove 
from the pit of perdition, and the imagination only 
doomed to hover around this place of unalleviated 
suffering, with what representations of sorrow would 
it confound the peace of the soul ! The sight of an 
execution will live long and frightfully in the mind 
of the spectator. He still sees the miserable victim 
of justice suspended from the scaffold, and still hears 
his coffin rumble down the untimely grave. If the 
violent extinction of animal life will so haunt and 
distress the mind of the spectator, what would those 
sighs, and groans, and unavailing lamentations do 
which crowd the world of woe ! Even in such a 
situation, the soul must be inconceivably miserable. 

"What, then, must be its anguish when itself be- 
comes the sufferer ! — when the spectator becomes 
the victim ! — when all these appalling representations 
of agony pour in endless reality through its every 
sense ! — when every capacity is full and overflowing 
with unmingled sorrow ! — when every effort at relief 
ends in a gasping sense of utter helplessness ! — when 
every recollection only deepens its distress, — every 
anticipation only strengthens its despair, — and every 
sensation only brings with it a crushing consciousness 
of utter ruin ! 

The intellect which could here find an escape 
from adversity in the conclusions of its calm philos- 



ITS AGONY AND DESPAIR ETERNAL. 315 

ophy, will there find, in every reflection, an exhaust- 
less soui'ce of anguish ; the memory which could 
here brighten the present with reflections from the 
past, will there restore only sources of remorse ; the 
imagination which here would promise what might 
never be enjoyed, may there, in its horror, predict 
what can never be endured ; the aflections which 
could here twine themselves around other and hap- 
pier beings, and thus participate in pleasures not its 
own, will there turn to hate, and pour into the deso- 
late soul the bitterness of unavenged malice ; con- 
science, which could here be stifled into silence, will 
there speak so that all hell shall hear — its rej^roaches 
will awaken the deepest pangs which Infinite dis- 
pleasure can decree, or a deathless spirit survive ! 

The ruined soul will, therefore, find within itself 
no one unbroken faculty upon which it can repose, — 
no less subdued, less agonized sense upon which it 
can lean. Every refuge is only an escape to fresher 
anguish and more poignant despair : and it has no 
resource from without. There is no being in the 
universe upon w^hom it can call for aid, — no object 
upon which its wandering thoughts can rest, — no 
spot endeared by recollection, where it can partially 
wean itself from present sufiering. The world where 
it once dwelt is changed, — its busy myriads are 
gone, — its palaces and towers are in the dust, — and 
the knell of time alone is heard through its lifeless 
desolations. All is as one empty grave ! The soul is 



SI 6 HOPE NEVER COMES THAT COMES TO ALL. 

thus left to its own nnspoken, unpitied misery — 
abandoned of all sympathetic beings — and impas- 
sably confined within the burning circle of its 
quenchless agony! 

The scorpion, begirt by flame, can destroy itself ; 
but this self-destructive power is not a property of 
the soul. Essentially immortal, it will, and must 
survive, though it survives only to pant for death. 
The destruction of the soul is, therefore, not only 
totals extending to all its powers and capacities, but 
it is eternal. This is the darkest and wildest feature 
in its doom. It might, perhaps, brace itself to the 
wrenching tortures of its rack, had it but the most 
distant prospect of relief : it might still, perhaps, en- 
dure its sufferings, could they but cease when as 
many centuries have elapsed as there are particles 
that compose this globe. It might then watch in its 
pangs for the numbering of the last, lingering sand ; 
but there is no such reprieve, even in the further est 
future. This globe might waste away, though but 
one particle were to perish in a thousand centuries, 
yet the lost soul would even then be but in the in- 
fancy of its woe ! 

Were the duration of its suffering concealed from 
the condemned spirit, it might cherish a deceptive 
belief of final deliverance, and it might find in this 
vague hope some motive to resolution, some antidote 
to despair. The mariner, cast upon a desolate rock 
in the ocean, realizes less the true horrors of his 



317 



situation from the cherished possibility of a friendly- 
sail : but no such beguiling possibility of relief comes 
to the wi'ecked soul in hell. There are no flattering 
delusions mingled with the terrors of the second 
death. The lost soul is smitten at once with hope- 
less and endless despair ! ]N"ot even the prospect of 
annihilation relieves the agony of its irreprievable 
doom. Its guilt and shame, remorse and woe, have 
passed under the awful seal of eternity. The dead 
may wake from their graves, corruption start into 
life ; but that seal will never — no, never be broken ! 

Why, alas ! is all this shame, remorse, and despair 
to be endured ? Why is it that this soul, endowed 
with faculties which might fit it to range all the 
magnificence of heaven, and enjoy the companion- 
ship of God and angels, is thus to be brought down 
a bleeding, burning wreck into hell ? What is the 
2yi''iGe at which man thus parts with the hirthriglit of 
his soul ? — what is the strength of that bribe for 
which he thus sells his immortal peace and happi- 
ness? 

One would think the temptation must be so strong 
as not to be within the power of human nature to 
be resisted. But no ; it is a little pleasure, which 
cloys and disgusts as soon as embraced ; it is a little 
honor which a breath hath made, and a breath can 
destroy ; it is a little wealth which will scarcely suf- 
fice to gild the coffin and shroud! These — tJiese 
are the trifles for which man parts with God and 



318 INCONSISTENCY OP CONDUCT WITH CEEED. 

glory ! — these are tlie worthless baubles for which he 
barters away his everlasting life and blessedness ! 
"Where, my God, is that reason with which man was 
originally endowed ? — was it not lost amid the ruins 
of the fall? 

Self-<Jonceited mortal, stand forth and vindicate 
your boasted prerogative, — show us in what be your 
claim to the slightest remnants of this reason. Do 
you believe the soul which you possess to be immor- 
tal, — that it shall survive the destruction of that 
body, — that it shall witness the decay of this earth 
and these visible heavens, — that it shall rise at last 
into a state of exalted happiness, or sink into depths 
of untold anguish ? Do you, in your lieart^ believe 
these declarations of Scripture and conscience ? And 
with this confession upon your lips, can you neg- 
lect and betray that soul ? — can you abandon it to in- 
evitable ruin ? — can you trample its godlike faculties 
into the dust, while you are in chase of the bubbles 
that float on this stream of time ? Where is the 
consistency between your conduct and creed ? — 
where is the evidence of sincerity in your professions 
of belief? Those convictions are worthless which do 
not influence conduct, — tliey are mere vagaries which 
float through the mind, unaccompanied by a single 
sensation of the heart, or action of the hand. 

Of what avail is your assent to the value of the 
soul, while you are regardless of its wants ? — what 
signify your convictions of its worth, while you are 



THE ENDANGERED SOUL INVITED TO CHRIST. 319 

slumbering over its peril ? How madly inconsistent 
and horribly guilty you are in acknowledging its 
heavenly birthright, and then betraying it unto dev- 
ils, — in recognizing upon it the immortal image of 
its Maker, and then hurrying it into the flames of 
hell ! Oh, could the sufferings of spirits in the bot- 
tomless pit speak ! could the agonies of the damned 
have utterance, their execrations would come up over 
this world in a tempest of thunder ! The terrors of 
the earthquake were forgotten in the more frightful 
horrors that would then visit the habitations of men. 
Oh, man of sin, who art living in this danger, thy 
soul not saved ! fly to the Lord Jesus Christ, through 
whom alone it is that salvation is not an impossibil- 
ity. He came to seek and save the lost. He came 
for thee ; and from all the terrors of the second death 
and the eternal ruin of thy soul, thou mayest now be 
saved, if thou wilt but cast thyself on him with pen- 
itence and faith. Him that cometh to me (they are 
his own sweet words) I will in no wise cast out. 
Take him at his word, and he will take you to his 
bosom, and will be glorified and happy in your sal- 
vation forever and ever. Amen. 



THE SIN OF NEGLECTING OR DENYING CHRIST. 



But wliosoever shall deny me before men, liim will I also deny be- 
fore my Father which is in heaven. — Matthew x. 33. 

Reteebiition "usually travels fast on the heels of 
transgression : it even casts its dread shadow forward 
of the steps of guilt, and spreads a premonitory dis- 
may over the conscience of the sinner. It seldom 
fails to reach the guilty in this life ; but when it does 
so fail, it is certain to overtake him in the next. Our 
text is an illustration of this deferred retribution. It 
suspends execution here, but only to open its ap- 
palling battery hereafter. 

Let us consider, first, the fact of denying Christ, 
and what it includes ; second, the causes which lead 
to it ; third, the criminality of it ; fourth, the conse- 
quences. 

I. To deny Christ, to disown him, or reject him, 
are one and the same thing. "What, then, is implied 
in it ? Or when may a man be said to deny or re- 
ject Christ ? What are the sentiments, and what the 
conduct of him to whom this flagrant criminality 
attaches ? That the scoffer and skeptic deny Christ, 
none can doubt ; but can this be predicated of one 



WHAT IT IS TO DENY CHRIST. 321 

who subscribes to the reality of his humiliation, suf- 
ferings, and death ; and to the overpowering import- 
ance of that sacrifice which he made of himself on 
the cross ? 

To answer this question aright, we must look at 
the object of Christ's mission. Was it merely an ex- 
hibition of divine compassion ? Was it a stupendous 
tragedy of love ? Was it to atone for guilt, merely ? 
Or was it to save the guilty ? Was it to unbar the 
prison, only ; or to bring the captive actually forth 
to light ? The purpose of Christ was the actual re- 
covery of our race : not the means of salvation, but 
the salvation itself. It was not to open an avenue of 
escape from peril, but the actual escajye of those in 
peril. It was not to divide the Eed Sea, but the 
passage of those through it, who crowded the strand. 
It was not to provide a city of refuge merely, but that 
all should fly to it. The purpose of Christ, then, was 
to save man. 

N^ow he who disregards this purpose in reference 
to himself; who resists its constraining force, prac- 
tically rejects Christ. He defeats, so far as he is 
concerned, the object of Christ's mission and death. 
His belief in the merits of the atonement, in the 
universality of its provisions, can ^-vail him nothing. 
The question is, how does he himself treat it ? How 
stands his own conduct in the matter ? It is^personal 
action which here stamps his character and his creed, 
If he withholds from Christ his own affections, ha 
14^ 



322 WHY CHKIST IS DENIED. 

disowns him. If he resists the purpose of Christ in 
his own salvation, he rejects him. Were all others 
to treat Christ as he does, of what avail were the 
atonement ? Christ would have died in vain. There 
would not be a church on earth to treasure his love ; 
not a heart in which his claims would be enthroned. 
Were all like him, the Saviour would have hung on 
the cross without a solitary follower, near or remote. 
He would have lain in the tomb without a heart to 
throb at the promise of his resurrection. He would 
have ascended from Olivet as unseen as the solitary 
bird soars from the depths of the silent wilderness. 

n. The causes of rejecting Christ. These lie in 
the insensibility, pride, and presumption of the hu- 
man heart. One of the inevitable consequences of 
sin, is a callousness to its enormity. The further one 
advances in transgression, the more insensible he 
becomes to his progress in guilt. It is the very na- 
ture of sin to blind the moral perceptions and harden 
the heart. 

'•■ I wave the quantum o' the sin, 
The hazard o' conceaHng ; 
But, oh ! it hardens a' within, 
And petrifies the feeling !" 

This insensibility to guilt is the prime cause of the 
rejection of Christ. Let a man feel his sins, and he 
will fly to the Saviour. Let him feel that he is lost, 
and he will feel for the cross. He will fly to that 
i'efuge of mercy as a pursued roe to its forest sanctu- 



THE PREVENTIVE POWER OF PRmE. 323 

ary. But while insensible of his guilt and danger, he 
will make no effort to escape. You may hold up the 
absolving cross, but he will die and make no sign. 
There is a slumber on his soul deeper than that which 
wraps the silence of the grave. The dead might as 
well be expected to make the sign of the cross in 
their coffins, as a sinner, who is not burdened with a 
sense of guilt, to embrace Christ. 

His pride likewise comes in to aid this result. It 
inflates him with conceptions of the dignity and self- 
relying powers of human nature ; and fills him with 
repugnance to the humility of a cross-seeking peni- 
tent. If he must go to the cross, he wishes to go 
there in state, as noblemen appear at court in the 
insignia of their rank. If his own claims will not 
carry him to heaven, still he wishes to travel on their 
force as far as they will carry him, and be dependent 
on the charity of the cross only for the residue of the 
journey. 

Poor, vain man ! his miserable vehicle of ostenta- 
tion and pride will not carry him a single league 
towards heaven. His flowing robes of self-righteous- 
ness, which he wraps around him with the self-com- 
placent dignity of a dying Roman, are only filthy 
rags. He is a Lazarus in every thing but the hu- 
mility which becomes his pinching poverty. But 
before he will confess his wretchedness, and seek re- 
lief where alone it can be found, his pride must be 
broken. He must feel like a shipwrecked mariner, 



324 THE MADNESS OF PEESUMPTION. 

with only one plank left him, and even that thrown 
within his reach by an all-merciful Providence. 

His presumption also contributes to his ruin. He 
persuades himself that the forbearance and pleading 
love of Christ will still hold out. He would make the 
cross a dernier resort, a last resource, a safe retreat 
when peril presses; a hiding-place when the hoof 
of Death's courser clangs on his ear. He expects 
to take refuge in it as the Arab flies to the lee of 
the rock when the simoom sweeps the desert. But 
the peril often comes too quick and fast. The child 
of the desert is overwhelmed before he can reach his 
rock, and the sinner perishes even in sight of the 
cross, but without clinging to it. His destruction is 
the combined result of his insensibility, pride, and 
presumption. By reason of these he lives without 
Christ, and dies without hojje. 

Wretched man ! his insensibility cannot mitigate 
his guilt ; his pride cannot protect him in the grave ; 
his presumption can only cover him with confusion 
at the judgment-bar. Yet these are his ruling pro- 
pensities ; his master-spirits ; the idols to which he 
kneels through life, only to see them shivered in 
death. Over their ruins his immortal spirit piles the 
mountain curse of its despair. 

HI. The guilt of disowning Christ. He who re- 
jects Christ rejects the sacrifice which he made of 
himself on the cross. He pours disdain on that stu- 
pendous exhibition of sympathy and love. He pours 



THE GUILT OF INGRATITUDE TO CHKIST. 325 



contempt on agonies which darkened the face of na- 
ture, and broke up the sleep of the grave. This 
mockery would be sufficiently impious were he a 
disinterested person. But it was for Mm that these 
sufferings were endured. It was to lift the curse 
from his guilty soul that Christ underwent the shame 
and ignominy of the cross. 

Ingratitude is a crime. It forfeits all further claims 
to sympathy and respect. The generous sacrifices of 
a benefactor are held sacred by the common senti- 
ment of mankind. Their disinterestedness sanctifies 
them in the minds of men. E^ow, man's greatest 
benefactor, beyond all comparison, is Christ. There 
is no parallel in the history of benevolence, to the 
tragedy of tlie cross. There has never been before, 
nor since, such a surrender of glory and bliss, and 
such a submission to reproach and torture. Other 
sacrifices have appeased the displeasure of man, but 
Christ's sacrifice appeased the wrath — say rather, 
made a way for the love to triumph over the wrath of 
a holy and righteous God. Other sacrifices have 
reached the welfare of a community, but Christ's 
embraced the hopes of a world. But these hopes, 
these vast and magnificent results, and the agonies 
out of which they spring, are all rejected by him 
who rejects Christ. He throws the dark shadow of 
his skepticism between the cross and the faith of na- 
tions. He covers earth with an eclipse darker than 
that of the Fall. 



326 THE INJUKY DONE ES' DISO"SVNrN-G CHEIST. 

If it be a capital offence to put out the poor taper 
of life in man, what must be Jiis crime who, so far 
as he can, puts out the light of life in the world ? If 
he should endure the extreme penalties of the law 
who brings bereavement into a domestic circle, what 
should he suffer whose act and example would entail 
misery without end on millions ? Such are the vast, 
disastrous issues of that skeptical indifference with 
which he regards the cross. He breaks down the 
only arch which spans the pit of perdition. Multi- 
tudes fill its depths with their groans who might have 
hymned their triumphs on the shores of life. Their 
wail goes up like that of a thousand cities sinking in 
earthquake convulsions. The gulfs which echo their 
despair will shake with the thunders of their agony, 
when the loud ocean is in the sleep of death. 

But the guilt of disowning Christ extends beyond 
a rejection of his atoning sacrifice, and a defeat of 
its benign purpose. It reaches the supreme majesty 
of Christ, and pours dishonor on the Divinity of his 
claims. He stands before you, not as a mortal, not 
as a wonderfully endowed prophet, nor as a glorified 
martyr. He is your Creator as well as your Saviour ; 
your final judge as well as your Hedeemer. At his 
mandate worlds rolled from chaos into light. His 
breath poured over them the bloom of verdure, and 
made them instinct with life. It was his hand that 
drew aside the curtains of primeval night from the 
face of this globe. It was his voice that broke the 



THE ^HGHT AND MAJESTY OF CHRIST. 327 

silence which slumbered over its vales and oceans. 
It was his power that lifted it to its orbit. It was his 
finger that drew its circuit through the heavens. It 
is at his bar that the countless dead are to appear. 
In his presence the highest intelligences in the uni- 
verse kneel. The army of prophets, apostles, and 
martyrs cast their crowns at his feet ; while the in- 
numerable company of the redeemed shout, " Worthy 
is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and 
riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and 
glory, and blessing." 

And who are you who stand up amidst these hal- 
lelujahs of saints and seraphim, and murmur your 
dissent ? Who are you who put in your sullen pro- 
test, while all heaven shakes with the swelling tide 
of seraphic harmony ? Who are you who maintain a 
supercilious silence ? — A being incapable of compre- 
hending even the mysteries of your own existence ! 
your very life trembling between two worlds, like a 
star between night and day ! 

It is as if the glow-worm were to lift its light to 
the sun ! It is as if a bubble were to break amid 
the eternal thunders of the deep ! Go hide your im- 
piety and insignificance in the grave. It will be 
time enough for you to talk of your might, when you 
can keep off the worm that comes to fret your shroud. 
It will be time enough for you to turn away from 
the light of the cross, when you can cast the first 
glimmering ray into your coffined night. It will be 



828 THE LOVE REJECTED IN THE SAVIOUR. 

time enoHgli for you to talk of facing tlie king of 
teiToi's, -svlien you can ward off one of tlie thousand 
sliatYs that till his quiver. It will be time enough 
for you to talk of lifting from yourself the curse of a 
violated law, when you have complied with the least 
of its requirements. Your rejection of Christ is an 
exhibition of insensibility and guilt, at which an 
angel might shudder. "Were such a spectacle of im- 
piety never witnessed before, it would strike the 
world with a deeper terror than did the fratricidal 
crime of Cain. 

This is the more apparent when we consider par- 
ticularly the love that is rejected in rejecting Christ — 
the Divine mercy and benevolence that are set at 
naught. Man often undertakes or prosecutes an en- 
terprise from which he would shrink, if he knew the 
privations and hardships which he must undergo in 
its achievement. But the benevolent purpose of our 
Saviour, in his mission to earth, derived no aid from 
any concealment of the trials and sufteriugs which 
lav in the future. He saw that verv mano'er that 
was to cradle his intancy ; the poor fishermen who 
were to be his companions ; the scotfing hierarchy 
who would deride his claims ; the fickle multitude 
who would forget the miracles wrought for their re- 
lief, and join the pei*secution. He saw the gai'den 
where he should be betrayed ; the hall where he 
should be condemned ; the hill where he should be 
crucified ; the insane crowd that would insult his 



MEEKNESS AND ENERGY OF CHRIST. 329 

latest prayer and mock his dying agonies ! All these 
were clearly apprehended, and fully anticii)ated from 
the first. But he was not to be deterred. His com- 
passionate purpose was fixed, -unalterably fixed, and 
tranquil as that self-existent attribute in God, over 
which time, change, and death have no power. 

But this fidelity and inflexible adherence to one 
all-pervading purpose was blended with the utmost 
gentleness and meekness of disposition. Our Saviour 
trenched uj^on no public or private rights ; violated 
no natural sympathies ; nor did he ever, except by 
the force of evidence, subject the opinion of an indi- 
vidual to his own infallible decision. There was a 
mildness and amiability in his character, which threw 
a softening aspect and deep attraction over its 
amazing energies. 

When we see him travelling through the streets of 
Jerusalem on his mission of love, — breathing only 
the accents of benevolence and compassion, — acting 
in every capacity which philanthropy could dictate, 
— carrying relief and consolation to the humblest 
abodes of privation and sorrow ; — when we see this, 
we forget that force of character which no difficulties 
could repress, no opposition overcome. We forget 
that serene indestructible purpose, which would have 
remained in the entireness of its strength, though all 
the fabrics of nature had sunk in ruins. IS'ever was 
there evinced in any other being such mildness and 
forbearance, connected with such an untirinc^, resist- 



830 CONSEQUENCES OF REJECTING HIM. 

less energy of character. Revenge may relax from 
the intensity of its fell purj)ose ; ambition be wearied 
in the prolonged pm-suit of its object ; and even the 
strength of natm^al affection abate ; but the compas- 
sionate purpose of Christ survives all vicissitudes, 
overcomes all opposition, and is triumphant even in 
the grave ! 

The cloud of centuries has passed away, and faith, 
hope, and charity still kneel at the foot of the Cross. 
There hung the bleeding Saviour; there sunk into 
the stillness of death the Being whose word spake 
worlds into existence, and whose voice will yet wake 
nations from their graves. They who sleep in the 
mountains and vales, and they whose resting-place 
is in the caverns of the deep, will one day hear his 
summons and come forth. Immortal happiness will 
be his who meets this Saviour as his friend, and end- 
less despair his portion who coldly shuts him from 
the bosom of his confidence and love. 

TV. But let us now consider, in the fourth place, 
the consequences of denying such a Saviour — Who- 
soever shall deny me hefore raen^ him will I also deny 
before m.y Father which is in heaven. The courtier 
who has fallen into the disfavor of his monarch, has 
been known to end his humiliation in the crime of 
self-destruction. Even the night of the gi-ave was 
more tolerable to him than the frown of offended 
majesty. If the displeasure of a mortal can so un- 
nerve the soul, what must the disowning look of 



HEAVEN LOST IN NEGLECTING CHRIST. Sol 

Christ do ? K the discarded courtier takes refuge in 
the grave, what gulf of night shall cover the disowned 
sinner? Where shall he go to bury himself from 
his guilt and ruin? There is for him no escape. 
Wherever he may fly, that disowning look of Christ 
will pursue. It will flash in lightning from every 
object that meets his eye; it will pour the death- 
knell of his peace in every sound that meets his ear. 

But he not only loses Christ as his Redeemer, but 
he loses heaven as his home. Eye hath not seen, 
nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of 
man to conceive what this Saviour has prepared for 
them that love him. But all this is lost, lost at once, 
and lost forever ! You may lose an estate, and sub- 
sequent industry may recover what previous profli- 
gacy has squandered ; but the soul, once cheated out 
of its reversion in the skies, can never recover it, 
though it should seek it carefully and with tears. 
That home which Christ provided for it is placed 
even beyond the reach of its hopes. Centuries of 
exile may be endured, but the celestial gate still re- 
mains barred. The flaming cherubim that guard its 
portal never slumber on their watch. 

Where, then, shall the disowned of Christ go ? 
Where take that soul with all its vast capacities and 
powers ? What shall he do with that intellect of all- 
grasping and subjecting energy? — what with that 
imagination of boundless power and cm-iosity ? — ■ 
what with that memory faithful to the countless ob- 



332 WEECK OF THE SOTJL LEFT OF CHRIST. 

jects of its trust ? — ^what with those sympathies which 
spread themselves through the moral universe of 
God ? Where shall he go with these under the dis- 
owning look of Christ ? — where employ them under 
that frown which shuts out the light of heaven and 
the visits of hope ? 

Down, like Lucifer from heaven, sinks that soul 
into depths of endless night! Heaven is not only 
lost, but hell is to be endured. Endless light ex- 
changed for endless darkness, — an eternity of bliss 
for an eternity of woe. Faculties that might range 
all the heavenly hills, hold communion with saints 
and seraphim, and swell the anthems that roll from 
their golden lyres, all brought down, under the dis- 
owning look of Christ, a crushed wreck into hell ! 

Who has not shuddered over the tragedies of the 
sea ? Who has not felt his heart cease to beat as the 
noble ship went into fragments on the roaring rocks ? 
But the wreck of an armada is nothing, compared 
with that of the soul. The wind that breathes this 
hour and dies the next, may moan its dirge ; but 
worlds might wail the wreck of a soul. The thun- 
ders of the Judgment-day, rolling on through eter- 
nity, would be the befitting knell of its despair! 
Such are the consequences of denying Christ ; such 
the deathless pangs which the disowning look of 
Christ will strike into the guilty soul. 

And it is right that these consequences should be 
incurred, in all their bitterness, by every wilful re- 



THE RUIN OF THE SOUL WILFUL. 333 

jector of the Lord Jesus Christ. A mere profession 
of belief in him, and an intellectual assent to the 
truths concerning him, while your heart practically 
rejects him, can be of no avail ; for, be it remem- 
bered, Christ did not make a sacrifice of himself on 
the cross merely that you should believe in the real- 
ity of that sacrifice, but that through it you should 
make your personal peace with God. He poured 
out his blood there, but it was that you should place 
your own throbbing heart beneath, and have its 
guilty stains washed out. 

You may see others crowd to this fountain and 
come away cleansed ; but what is that to you while 
you stand aloof from it yourself, covered as you are 
with moral pollution ? So long as you refuse to go 
and immerse yourself in its wave, you slight its 
purifying virtues, you reject its cleansing provisions, 
yom* belief in its efficacy is nothing ; it is worse than 
a dead letter : it only augments the guilt of your de- 
lay and refusal. You have no stains which it cannot 
wash out, and you know it, and yet you refuse to go. 

Yom' moral nature is diseased : he ofiers you an 
eftective, infallible remedy, and you reject it. Your 
soul has the plague-spot of moral death on it : he 
offers you the balsam of his blood ; you reject it. 
You are covered with the rags of self-righteousness : 
he offers you a garment without spot, wrinkle, or 
any such thing ; you reject it. He meets you in the 
city of destruction, and offers you a passport to a 



834 A REJECTED SAVIOUR OUR FIKAL JUDGE. 

place of safety : you reject it. He finds you poor, 
destitute, a ruined bankrupt, and offers you treas- 
ures in heaven : you reject them. He finds you 
unable to cope with the king of terrors, and offers 
you a panoply in which you can contend and tri- 
umph : you reject it. He finds you on the great 
ocean of life without compass or chart, and the tem- 
pest of God's wrath coming on, and he offers to take 
you to a secm'e haven : you reject the generous of- 
fer. 

In doing this — in rejecting all these provisions 
of Christ's mercy, you reject hem. You reject him 
as a Saviour, as a Kedeemer, as the Lamb of God 
who taketh away the sins of the world. And how, 
then, can you be saved, when his own words are — 
He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, 
hath one that judgeth him : the word that I have 
spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day: 
and whosoever shall deny me before men, him will 
I also deny before my Father which is in heaven ! 



MEMOIK. 



The character of a deceased Friend or beloved Kinsman ought not 
to be seen otherwise than as a Tree through a tender haze, or a lu- 
minous mist, that spiritualizes and beautifies it ; that takes away, 
indeed, but only to the end that the parts which are not abstracted may 
appear more dignified and lovely. The composition and quality of the 
mind of a virtuous man, contemplated by the side of the grave where 
his body is moldering, ought to appear to be felt as something mid- 
way between what he was on Earth, walking about with his living 
frailties, and what he may be presumed to be as a Spirit in Heaven. 
It suffices, therefore, that the Trunk and the main Branches of the 
Worth of the Deceased be boldly and \inaffectedly represented. 

Wordsworth. 



MEMOIR OF REV, WALTER COLTON. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE VERMONT FAMILY, AND SKETCHES OF WALTER AS A 
BOY, YOUTH, AND MAN. 

Pure Livers were they all, austere and grave, 
And fearing God, the very Children taught 
Stern self-respect, a reverence for God's word, 
And an habitual piety, maintained 
"With strictness scarcely known on English ground. 

Wordsworth. 

Yeemont is a State rich in physical and mental 
resources. ^"0 one can read its history without 
learning this, or can ride through it and observe its 
grazing-grounds, its geology, its woodland and mount- 
ain scenery, and mark the men whose energies are 
applied to develop its capacities, without admiring 
the region and the race. If its rocks are marble, its 
men and women, while of a noble granite make, are 
any thing but marble-hearted. Social and personal 
truth, purity, and kindness, are combined with a 
sturdy patriotism and fervent love of liberty. The 
ministers, teachers, statesmen, authors, merchants, 
15 



338 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

inventors, and men of science and art whom this 
State has furnished to the nation, rank with the 
wisest, ablest, and best of the world. 

And still, amid the rocks and hills of the Green 
Mountain State, and of all J^ew England, if the prin- 
cij)les of '76 hold fast, our country will find its fore- 
most men, its leaders in the great conflict for human 
freedom, and in all that is great and good. Rearing 
in those old farm-houses on hill-top and valley— 
taking and giving lessons at those firesides and in 
those district schools, and w^orking the monumental 
marble in those quarries and shops, — are the young 
Marshes and Slades, the Collamores and Burrits, the 
Coltons and Belknaps, the Bushes and Blanchards, 
and Mary Lyons, whose monuments shall be in the 
memories of generations yet to come. The farms 
and the workshops of Puritan E'ew England must 
continue to send forth noble men, and women too, 
for the City, the Church, and the World, to carry 
forward its Literature, Science, Commerce, and Chris- 
tianization. 

It was in one of those Green Mountain towns, in 
the County of Rutland, Yermont, that a child was 
born to Walter and Thankful Colton on the ninth of 
May, 1797, whom they named after his father, Walter. 
He was the third of twelve children, ten of them sons, 
of whom eleven were reared to adult age, and all of 
them became virtuous and useful members of society, 
and well to do in the world. 



MEMORABILIA OF THE FATHER. 339 

Walter's father was by trade a cloth-weaver, where- 
by, mainly, he sustained his family at a time when, 
before the introduction of the power loom and spin- 
ning-jenny, the largest j)art of wearing fabrics used 
in the interior of the country were home made. In 
his younger days he taught school, but emigrated 
early to Yermont from Long Meadow, Massachusetts. 
Through life he has devoted a portion of each day to 
self-improvement by judicious reading, thereby con- 
stantly adding to the stores of a tenacious memory. 

By the blessing of God upon his uniform temperance, 
and an equable, regular life, his hale health has con- 
tinued unbroken to his present eighty-seventh year ; 
his mental faculties and animal spirits have been re- 
tained in their vigor. When at the age of seventy- 
seven he was heard to remark that, " for forty years 
past, he had not failed a single Sabbath to be present 
at church," although he has lived a mile from the 
meeting-house, and has always walked. 

For nearly fifty years he has been a conscientious, 
consistent, and exemplary Deacon of the Congrega- 
tional Church in Georgia, Yermont. Their father's 
principles and example, and a common-school educa- 
tion, were the only dowry he could give to any of his 
children. While some of the sons have attained to 
wealth, and all to competency in different parts of 
the United States, it is a feature in this Yermont 
family which deserves to be held u^^ for imitation, 
that such is the strong feeling of affection still exist- 



310 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

ing between all its members, tbat if one suffer, all 
the others suffer with it ; and there has not been one 
of the eleven who would not at any time willingly 
share his last dollar with a brother or sister in want. 

From early youth Walter was delicate in health, 
of a nervous temperament, and small make, and his 
brain unduly exercised for his body. He was, however, 
an active and happy boy, especially fond of gunning, 
fishing, and skating. For these exercises there were 
peculiar facilities in the town of Georgia, on the 
shores of Lake Champlain, where his father removed 
when Walter was but an infant. 

In childhood he used to act the preacher, getting 
his books, pulpit, and hearers about him, and going 
through all the forms of public worship with a grave 
propriety far above his years. His memory was un- 
commonly facile and retentive ; and when he was but 
eight or nine years old, he was in the habit of repeat- 
ing or declaiming one of Dr. Hunter's sermons on 
the History and Character of Balaam. In his boy- 
hood he was remarkably familiai; with the Bible. It 
was a common practice in his father's family for all 
the children to sit down with their Bibles, and then 
for one of them, in turn, to repeat a verse from the 
historical parts somewhere between Genesis and 
Psalms, and set the others to hunting for it. By this 
practice, frequently repeated, they became so familiar 
with the Bible that they could readily turn to almost 
any text that might be given. 



NOTES OF HIS BOYHOOD AND YOUTH. 341 

Walter was distinguished among his playmates 
and brothers for his mental vivacity, sparkling wit 
and imagination, playful fancy, and aptness at story- 
telling. He was regarded as a leader among other 
boys, and they would often gather in his father's 
yard to hear Walter spin his yarns. His fondness 
for society, and his company being sought after by 
his seniors, proved to him a snare, for at the age of 
seventeen a discovery made by his father that Walter 
was in danger from evil associates, led him to send 
his son to an uncle in Hartford, Conn., to learn of him 
the trade of a cabinet-maker. 

He there came under the pastoral influence and 
instructions of Kev. E"athan Strong, D. D., whereby 
his attention was first seriously turned to the import- 
ance of personal religion. Early in the year 1816 
his convictions of sin resulted in the hearty accept- 
ance of the Christian scheme of justification through 
faith in Christ ; and he consecrated himself to God, 
by a public profession of religion in the Centre 
Church, Hartford. Five other young men united 
with him in this profession, who were likewise follow- 
ing mechanical pursuits in another shop at Hartford, 
and they all afterwards became preachers of the Gos- 
pel. 

Shortly after this decisive entrance upon the life 
of a Christian, feeling that he could serve God and 
his generation better through a liberal education 
with a view to the ministry, and advised also by his 



3tt2 MEMOIK OF WALTER COLTON. 



pastor and friends, who saw in him a warmth of 
heart and a vein of originality that gave promise, if 
rightly worked, of future usefulness, he entered the 
Hartford Grammar-school, under the charge of Rev. 
Horace Hooker, in order to j)repare for college. 

In the fall of 1818, being twenty-one years of age, 
he entered Yale College, where he won the Berk- 
leyan Prize for the best Latin translation, and deliv- 
ered the Valedictory Poem when, he graduated in 
1822. He taught school one season in his college 
course at West Springfield, Mass. 

Of his acquirements and scholarship while in col- 
lege, a class-mate, since risen to eminence, says, that 
although highly reputable, they were not such as to 
place him in the first rank, or to give promise of any 
very signal success in that respect in after-life. "He 
entered college too late, with preparations too hastily 
and imperfectly made, and with his mental habits too 
far formed, as I suppose, to enable him to reach emi- 
nence in the profound researches of science, or suc- 
cessfully to compete in classical literature with many 
who, of perhaps inferior natural powers, had enjoyed 
the advantages of superior early training ; and, 
though not universally applicable, yet there is un- 
doubtedly great force and justice in the remark, that 
whatever nature may do in the distribution of tal- 
ents, the true distinction between men is in their 
training. 

" In activity of mind and quickness of apprehen- 



STUDp:S AND STAlfDINO IN COLLEGE. 34:3 

sion ; in the exercise of imagination, often, it is true, 
at that time displaying more fertility than correct- 
ness, and needing rigid discipline therefore to re- 
strain its luxuriance and bring it within the laws of 
true taste ; in the qualities which seem to find their 
proper sphere in elegant literature, and fit one to be- 
come a popular writer, or ready, interesting speaker, 
I think Mr. Colton stood among the foremost. It 
was customary in the literary societies and at the 
class exhibitions to make a dialogue or a play a 
prominent part of the entertainment ; and I well rec- 
ollect that, on several such occasions, his powers were 
very successfully and with general approbation laid 
under contribution. 

" The tendencies of mind were then very observ- 
able and active, which afterwards discovered them- 
selves in his various productions, and gave him so 
lar^e a share of success and distinction as an author. 
There seemed a natural aptitude for whatever was 
refined in thought or graceful in expression ; a genial 
warmth of fancy, a ready humor, a quick and keen 
perception of the beautiful, and of the ridiculous, too, 
which enabled him to describe a character or a scene 
with great felicity, and gave a strong attraction to 
his conversation and his writing. I have no doubt 
he found far more congenial communion with the 
poets and essayists than with the mathematicians ; 
and Milton, and Shakspeare, and Addison would 
rank higher in his estimation than Napier's Loga- 



344 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

rithms or Euclid's Geometry, Surds, or Conic Sec- 
tions. This was owing probably as mucli to the late 
beginning of study as to the natural bias of his mind. 
I do not question that he had the natural powers 
adequate to have made him a very competent classic 
or mathematician ; although the general features of 
his mental character would have remained the same 
substantially under any training. 

" But he had not the time, nor perhaps the dispo- 
sition, then to pay that degree of attention to those 
pursuits which were requisite to secure the victory. 
A mind that had already unfolded its powers of re- 
flection, sought for thought and sentiment rather 
than words or signs. The possessor of it would most 
naturally become a reader, and betake himself to 
those master-spirits whose works are storehouses of 
thought and imagery, and who have enriched the 
world by the splendid efforts of their genius. 

" In this resj^ect he was an example of a large class 
of young men, especially from our New England col- 
leges, whom a generous passion for an education has 
impelled at the age of manhood to forsake the farm 
and the trade for the academy ; and who, if they do 
not become quite so minutely accurate in the niceties, 
so skilful in adjusting the beautiful drapery of learn- 
ing as some others, often better attain the solid sub- 
stance of available learning, and become the most 
successful and useful men in the various walks of 
professional life." 



m THE SEMINARY AND PROFESSORSHIP. 345 

The great object of Mr. Col ton in relinquishing 
his former avocations and entering upon a course of 
study, having been from the beginning the Gospel 
ministiy, he entered the Theological Seminary at 
Andover immediately on leaving college. He devo- 
ted much time while there to literature, composing, 
among other things, a Sacred Drama, which was 
acted by the students at one of their Rhetorical 
Exhibitions, and a E"ews Carriers' Address for one 
of the Boston newspapers, which gained him a 
prize of $200. His anniversary part at the seminary 
was also a moral poem. 

Soon after graduating, in the fall of 1825, he was 
ordained as an Evangelist, according to the usage of 
the Congregational Church, and was then chosen 
Professor of Moral Philosophy and Belles-Lettres in 
the Scientific and Military Academy at Middletown, 
Conn., under the Presidency of Ca23tain Alden Part- 
ridge. This appointment was accepted, not without 
misgivings and hesitation by one of his turn and 
training, from the necessity it involved of foregoing, 
for a time, the pastoral ofiice. He was, however, 
mainly resolved in this decision — which proved the 
rudder of his life — by reasons growing out of the 
etate of his health, already much undermined by 
dyspepsia. His bitter experience and mortal com- 
bats with the student's foe at that time were com- 
memorated by him in some vigorous lines entitled 
" Dyspepsy." 

15^ 



346 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

During the four years of his professorship:*, besides 
fulfilling the obvious duties of his position, he wrote 
" A Prize Essay on Duelling," " A Discussion of the 
Genius of Coleridge," "The Moral Power of the 
Poet, Painter, and Sculptor contrasted ;" and many 
other contributions in prose and verse for the Mid- 
dletown Gazette, over the signature of Bertram. 

Among other exercises in the line of his profes- 
sion while there, the following are preserved, as hav- 
ing been much admired by his friends at the time, 
and as containing the grounds of his after success in 
authorship, and even the very germs of thought, 
imagination, and fancy, which later in life flowered 
into the peculiar rhetorical beauties of expression 
that marked his style. The first is in 1826, entitled 

Address delivered before the Cadets of Captain Partridge's Academy, 
on the death of the JEx-Presidents Adams and Jefferson, by Rev. 
Walter Colton, Chaplain of the Institution. 

The bolt which rives tlie oak is hurled from the cloud of em- 
bosomed thunder : the wave that whelms a navy is urged by the 
might of a tempest: the earthquake, whose footsteps are the 
ruins of cities, proceeds from the violent contentions of those 
mysterious agents that war in the recesses of utter night; and 
those men of giant mold, who come forth to control the des- 
tinies of millions, are produced in those convulsions which shake 
the moral world to its centre. They appear in those conflicts 
which enlist the roused-up energies of nations, and which would 
be followed by the most disastrous consequences, but for these 
master-spirits that reign over the scene of their troubled birth. 

There are no tempests in a tranquil atmosphere, no mountain 



EULOGY ON ADAMS AKD JEFFERSON. 347 

waves upon a quiet sea, no cataracts in an even stream ; and 
rarely does a man of pre-eminent powers burst upon our ad- 
miration in the even, undisturbed flow of human affairs. Those 
men who rise to sway the opinions, or control the energies of a 
nation — to move the great master-springs of human action, are 
developed by events of infinite moment. They appear in those 
conflicts where the political or religious faith of nations is agi- 
tated, and where the temporal and eternal welfare of millions is 
at issue. 

It was in one of these awful conflicts that those men appeared 
whose death has just occasioned the lamentations of a grateful 
people to mingle with the jubilee of their Independence. They 
appeared in our convulsive struggle for life and liberty ; and let 
these universal expressions of respect and sorrow tell of their 
might in that hour of our extremity. Had they appeared before 
that hour, it would have been too soon for that point of awful 
decision — that point when their determined action would be sup- 
ported by the combined strength of a nation ; and had they ap- 
peared after that hour, it would have been too late, for the arms 
of the people would already have been bound in chains, or par- 
alyzed in death. 

No deep drift of human forecast could have arranged cu'cum- 
stances with so much precision. He who rules in the armies of 
heaven, and among the inhabitants of earth — who sees the end 
from the beginning — appointed the time,.arranged the circum- 
stances, and called up these powerful agents of his holy pleasure. 
He endowed them with those severe virtues which the perilous 
crisis demanded. They were to be firm, when others wavered ; 
they were to decide, when others doubted; they were to act, when 
others faltered and deferred. They answered these high ex- 
pectations. They were firm — firm when every thing around them 
fluctuated like the restless tide. They were decided, and wrote 
down with an untrembling hand a Declakation which the fearful 
. read with quivering lips ; which the brave regarded with awe ; 



348 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

and which loosened the joints of the monarch upon his throne : 
they did act — and their actions bespoke the entire exertion of 
their undivided strength. 

They seemed like men incapable of doubt and fear, and who 
were removed beyond the necessity of suspense. They pos- 
sessed an intuition of consequences, a knowledge of results that 
warranted them in a course of conduct which appeared to men 
of less penetration the height of rashness. The distant future . 
nppeared to them in a light approaching nearer to certainty than 
mere conjecture. They beheld its faint outline, dimly apparent, 
like that of the moon, through a long vista of vapors, clouds, and 
tempests. 

They never lost sight of the ultimate object, or wavered in 
their march to its attainment. Their footsteps must be the graves 
of their enemies, and their eyes must swim in tears over the death 
of their friends; they must encounter the doubts and severe ani- 
madversions of the less bold and penetrating ; for their plans lie 
too deep, and extend too far, for common observation; they must 
be opposed, and may be betrayed; but they must go on, the good 
of their country calls. They are not at liberty to consult for 
their own safety or happiness. They acknowledge no private 
interests, no personal motives. The common weal is the regu- 
lating principle in their conduct. They have placed themselves 
within the fatal range of exasperated ambition and provoked 
power, but they are prepared for consequences. They have writ- 
ten down a declaration of their freedom, and are ready to seal it 
with their blood. 

They survived the conflict; broke the oppressor's rod; and 
laid the foundations of freedom, deep and strong. They realized 
their most distant hopes ; they lived to see their country eminent 
among the nations of the earth ; commanding resources which 
astonished the politicians of the old world ; gathering new strength 
with every successive year, till her jubilee was ushered in with a 
shout, and rolled in a tide of rapture over her hills and valleys. 



EULOGY ON ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. 349 

Their recollections were too vivid, their feelings too strong, the 
scene too transporting for enfeebled nature to endure; nature 
foiled, and their vigorous spirits winged their way into the world 
unknown. 

But though their mighty spirits have fled, and though their 
honored remains must be yielded to corruption, yet their memo- 
ries will remain ; and ages hence a record of their doings will be 
found deep and indelible upon the human heart. Those men 
who live only for the good of others, never die. The epicure 
will be forgotten with his banqueting-board. The conqueror 
hardly survives the pangs he has inflicted, or the liberties he has 
overthrown. The foster-child of fame, who floats through life 
upon a tide of popularity, may at last be wrecked upon a shore 
where the past is forgotten, and the future will mock his preten- 
sions, and where the gilded trappings of a shroud are all that 
distinguish the man of wealth from the mendicant that starved 
at his portal. 

But they who have lived for the good of others, though age 
may make a wreck of their strength, the animal flame go out, 
and the grave close over their mortal remains; though iho monu- 
ment may molder over the spot it consecrates, and the lapse of 
ages pass on ; though the globe itself should become a ruin, and 
the course of its march through the heavens be unknown, yet 
these men, devoted to the high interests of their species, will live 
still. They, as the visible agents, are removed, but the light and 
force of their example still remain ; and the moral elements will 
never cease to show the traces of their purity and power. The 
conduct of each is a link in that chain which connects time with 
eternity : over which death has no power, and which cannot be 
dissolved even by the fires that shall at last melt down these 
nether elements. 

No ! it is the man who limits his conduct to the circle of his 
personal interests that perishes at death ; while he who seems 
indifferent to himself, who is affected by the interest of others, 



350 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

who is roused to .ictioii by those objects which tell upon the 
happy destinies of a nation, lives on — lives on, despite of envy, 
malice, and the grave. The time will come, when those intrepid 
men who first asserted our rights and breasted themselves to 
the strongest power on earth, will be revered with a veneration 
approaching to idolatry, but for the exalted worth on which it is 
bestowed. Let the familiarities of affinity in time pass away ; — 
let the medium through which we view them be extended into a 
vista of ages ; — let the glorious results of their doings alone be 
around us, and from this position they will appear like beings 
strongly endowed for a work that transcends the common pow- 
ers of humanity ; and tilling their noble vocation with a purity 
of motive, and depth of understanding, and an energy of action 
unparalleled in the history of man. 

Of that determined few, who subscribed to the fearful decla- 
ration of our rights, but one remains. His companions, — where 
are they ? One after another, they have gone to their final rest ; 
and his heart is now breaking for those who were with him the 
only survivors, but who, even in death, were not divided. He 
stands alone, like a venerable oak amid the ruins of the forest, 
ere long to bow before the tempest that has prostrated its com- 
panions. He remains a living representative of the mighty dead 
— a monument upon which the splendors of their worth seem to 
linger, like the glories of sunset upon the evening cloud. He is 
the last of those constellations which appeared in our hemis- 
phere while wrapped in darkness and tempest, and which held 
their courses, steady and luminous, through the long night of 
our peril, and waned not till the splendors of breaking day. 

What may be our destiny as a nation, the impenetrable 
future must develop. God may so order it, that the deepest 
severities which overtake humanity may betide us. The political 
world is now, for the most part, still ; but this quietude may be 
merely a suspense of action, while its exhausted energies may 
gather strength for a more violent convulsion. The ocean 



EULOGY ON ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. 351 



seems most tranquil just before it is roused into wrath. We 
may be called from the peace and serenity of domestic life to the 
encounters of the doubtful field. We may be placed where upon 
our bearing the destinies of millions will depend. We may be 
placed where there is no alternative between a resignation of 
our privileges and the grave. But if we keep in vivid remem- 
brance the worth and sacrifices of those who bequeathed us 
these privileges, we shall not be held in suspense, though the 
grave be damp and the shroud thereof drenched in blood. It 
becomes us, even in this apparent security, to prepare for the 
most perilous vicissitudes that can await us. We must brace 
the sinews of our strength to the grappling arm of tyranny 
wherever it may fall ; and, trusting in Him who has been our 
defence in ages past, let us hand down to the generations that 
follow us, our rights and privileges unimpaired. 



Address delivered at the Chapel of the Lyceum of the American Lit- 
erary, Scientific, and Military Academy, after the funeral of Com- 
modore Macdonough, hy the Rev. Mr. Colton, Chaplain of the Ln- 
stitution. 

The attachments of a nation to the land of their birtb are 
strengthened by their veneration for those who sleep in its bo- 
soih. It is this hallowed respect— this sacred affection for the 
dead, that unites the present generation wilh the past, and 
awakens in the breast of a people a vigorous, virtuous pat- 
riotism. 

Were we compelled, by some irresistible urgency, to leave 
forever this land of our pride and hopes, our hearts would dis- 
solve in grief over so hopeless a disruption from the breathing 
objects of our affection; but our blood would chill, as with par- 
ricidal horror, at the idea of abandoning forever the graves of 



352 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

our fathera. These attachments to the deceased objects of our 
love and veneration are not without an influence upon our feel- 
ings and conduct ; and the tendency of this influence will be sal- 
utary in proportion to the \irtues of the deceased : hence the ex- 
pediency of keeping in living, vigorous remembrance, the piety 
and worth of the departed. 

Among those on whom our veneration fixes with the deepest 
interest, and who will rightly control our conduct from their 
urns, is he whose mortal remains we have just committed to the 
earth. Well might we weep, while we spread his cold couch of 
clay, and mantled him down into the voiceless recess of the 
grave. Oh, how changed — how altered from all that he was ! 
The eye that melted with pity, is now sealed to its own corrup- 
tion, — the heart that beat and glowed witli the love of Christ, is 
now fixed and passionless, — the breast that heaved with noble, 
generous purposes, is now pressed down into unalterable still- 
ness, — the arm, from whose reacting energy the javelin flew like 
lightning from the cloud, is now motionless and cold ! In our 
voiceless grief, we awake above him the thunders of the minute- 
gun ; but he is laid in that sleep from which we wake not — that 
sleep on which no clarion's note shall sound, no busy morning 
rise — the long, long slumber of the tomb ! 

But it is not my object on this overwhelming occasion, to 
give expression to passionate grief, or pronounce a lofty eulogy; 
yet, while we bow in silent submission to this mysterious Provi- 
dence, it is due to the memory of the departed, and may not be 
without its salutary effects upon the living, to look steadily at 
the worth of the deceased. 

True courage is one of the sublimest passions of which the 
human soul is capable. It is a calm, unreserved surrender of 
ourselves to the mighty event before us ; — it is an unshrinking, 
uncompromising, unquestioning devotion to the dread, inscruta- 
ble issue. It differs essentially from that blind, reckless expo- 
sure of life, so frequently and falsely termed courage ; and which 



ETTLOGY ON COM. MACDONOUGH. 353 

may belong, in as eminent a degree, to the man who leaps from 
the precipice as to him who dies in battle. True courage is not 
indifferent to consequences, — the sacrifice must not transcend its 
object. All the circumstances which predict success or failure 
are held in luminous survey, till the calm, collected judgment of 
the man determines — and then, action alone remains. 

Such was the courage of Macdonough on the perilous edge of 
battle. When the sound of preparation had died away into that 
suspense where men are pinched for breath, and expectation be- 
comes agony, he appeared tranquil as one unalterably fixed. 
And during the doubtful conflict he made none of those blind, 
headlong movements which indicate the presence of a desperate 
ambition or the want of capacity. He went to the work like a 
man penetrated with a deep sense of his duty — not at liberty to 
act otherwise — unconcerned what might become of himself, anx- 
ious only to answer the claims of his country, his conscience, 
and his God. 

When silence from the deck told that the work of death was 
done, then the sternness of the general gave way to the sensibil- 
ities of the man, and he wept over the fallen brave. His gener- 
ous pity overflowed in acts of attention to the bleeding enemy : 
he no longer regarded them as foes, but as sufferers, whom the 
irresistible impulse of his heart led him to relieve. That bitter 
hostility to the resisting or conquered enemy which has sadly 
tarnished the lustre of many a hero, found no place in the breast 
of Macdonough. He regarded the enemy as men whom 
the deplorable circumstances of war had arrayed against his 
country ; and while it was his duty to oppose the destructive 
urgency of then* movements, he would not, for a moment, har- 
bor a feeling that would triumph in the destruction of an indi- 
vidual. 

His kind offices to the wounded captive will long be remem- 
bered by those who encountered him, and many a rough Cana- 
dian heart will weep at the story of his death. Were all who 



354 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

engage in war to possess the spirit of Macdonough, this Gorgon 
of death would lose half his horrors. 

There was a silent energy in the movements of Macdonough 
that indicated the decision and efficacy of his character. While 
you would have thought him accomplishing but little, he would 
be conducting a complicated train of circumstances to a most 
difficult result ; and would show, in the end, that he had not 
been the indifferent being you might have supposed him. The 
stream that makes the least noise has the deepest channel. The 
arrow that whizzes least from the string does the most execution. 

The interest he manifested in the public honors bestowed 
upon him never exceeded a suitable respect to those who con- 
ferred them. Indeed, while different States vied in their spirit- 
stirring expressions of veneration for the hero, he discovered an 
indifference that could be reconciled only with the extreme mod- 
esty of the man. He seemed as one conscious of having done 
only his duty, and who had no claims to any particular favor. 
Therefore, he looked upon these expressions of public gratitude 
and veneration as a gratuity, pleasing, no doubt, as they bespoke 
the best feelings of a nation towards him, yet altogether unmer- 
ited on his part. He was never known, of his own accord, to 
mention the battle on Lake Champlain. 

Looking at Macdonough as he developed the citizen, one 
would hardly think him formed for the tremendous issue of war. 
The innate modesty of the man pervaded and concealed the air 
and aspect of the conqueror. His unpretending manners and in- 
viting address seemed hardly compatible with his commanding 
energies on the deck of death. A stranger, falling in with him, 
would soon have felt that he was in the society of a modest 
Christian, an enlightened citizen, a warm-hearted philanthropist 
— but it never would have occurred to him that he was convers- 
ing with the Hero of the Lakes ; so utterly aside did the mod- 
esty of the man place him from every appearance that indicated 
a sense of personal importance. 



EULOGY ON COM. MACDONOUGH. o55 

He took apparently as lively an interest in the welfare of the 
community where he belonged, as those who were never, like 
him, called away from it by the responsibilities of a lofty station. 
No scheme that promised to promote the social, civil, or religious 
interests of the little community that embosomed his truly 
amiable family, languished for want of his prompt and liberal 
patronage. He discharged so faithfully the duties of a citizen, 
that one would have supposed these his prime responsibilities. 

His benevolence to the poor is known best to themselves: 
the cottages of want can tell many a simple story of his charity 
that found its way unseen to their door. The famishing and 
helpless, refreshened by his bounty, have blessed the unknown 
heart that pitied them. The widow and fatherless may assume 
no pompous badges of woe, but they will feel that he is gone. 
May God touch the hearts of others, and, as one source of char- 
ity is cut off, open new ones. 

I have already transgressed the limits which I had prescribed 
to these remarks ; but I should do injustice to the character of 
the deceased, as well as violence to my own feelings, not to 
bring more distinctly into view the unadorned piety of Macdon- 
ough. His religion was not a garment to be assumed or laid 
aside as taste or convenience might dictate. It was not an air 
of solemnity that pervaded him only when in the society of the 
good : it was not a current of feeling which commenced and 
terminated within the precincts of the sanctuary ; but it was an 
ESSENTIAL part of his character — an indispensable in his very 
being : he appeared on no occasion without it. The first and 
last impression he left upon a stranger, was a deep sense of his 
religious obligations. 

His piety, like his valor, was unpretending; it had more to do 
with his own heart than with the conduct of others. He incul- 
cated religion by the purity of his own life. His conduct was a 
living, correct commentary upon his profession : they were never 
known to be at variance. Ascertain what his religious opinions 



356 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

were upon a subject, either of greater or less moment, and you 
might predict with certainty what would be his course of con- 
duct. Conscience imposed upon him an absolute obligation — 
an uncomplying necessity ; he acknowledged no other authority 
— he consulted no other oracle; what she required must be 
done — what she prohibited, for his life he would not essay. 

On the perilous edge of battle the hurrying sounds of prepara- 
tion were arrested, that he might implore the aid of a divine arm ; 
and when the conflict closed, with an overflowing gratitude he 
remembered that divine arm. It was this sense of the divine 
agency that made all his honors sit so loosely upon him ; for 
they attracted every eye more than his. 

While the public prints were loud in the rehearsal of his 
achievements, and the poets of the day were weaving into song 
his brilliant exploits, and men everywhere talked of his match- 
less worth, he was in the circle that had met for prayer. Oh, 
God ! this humble, retiring piety adorns and exalts its possessor, 
as much as it honors thee ! It is recollections connected with 
the piety of the deceased that now sustain his weeping friends. 
Had he gone to his grave with all his honors upon him, unpre- 
pared for his last account, we might well even now be pouring 
the loud expressions of our grief into his grave. But his godli- 
ness prevents our tears. Oh, Piety ! thou brightest ornament, 
fairest virtue, richest inheritance of man ! 

Standing around the grave of Macdonough, who does not feel 
the energy of that saying. What thou doest, do quickly ? The 
lightning which shivers the mountain oak plays destructively in 
the vale below : death tramples down alike the lowly and the 
proud : character or station is no security. I know you are now 
in the spring-time of your hopes : the currents of health mantle 
warmly through your veins ; the pulse of life beats vigorously 
in your limbs ; but if the blood which has left that heart revisits 
its source again, there will be accomplished in you little less 
than a miracle. You little deem how precarious is your tenure 



EULOGY ON COM. MACDONOUGH. 357 



on life— you feel that others may die, but a few paces ahead, 
and you, too, may find a grave sunk across your path. If you 
have yet the great work of saving your souls to accomplish, let 
your action be immediate ; trust it not to an unknown hereaf- 
ter ; leave it not to the agony of a dying hour, or to that apathy 
still nearer the fatal moment. 

The youth is cut down in the midst of his hopes, and the aged 
dies vdth his infirmities : the lowly perish, and the mighty are laid 
in the dust : one and another departs from our midst never to 
return — coffin rumbles after coflin, to join the dark caravan of 
death : the shroud of the insatiate grave hath mantled down to 
its voiceless recess the mates of our childhood, the guides of 
our youth, the companions of our riper years. Those that 
moved with us, can no longer share in our friendship,— those 
that soared above us, have passed beyond the reach of our ven- 
eration. 

Where now is he whose hymn of triumph once, floated over 
the waters of the North ? There is a wail on the ocean deeper 
than the sighing of the wind through the vessel's shrouds! 
There are tears there, coursing the cheeks of hardy mariners, 
more quick and scalding than those which fall over common dust. 
The banner that floated in triumph, is now the shroud of the 
hero! Alas! the Christian, patriot, hero, is no more! His 
desolate house is now more desolate still. The countenance ■ 
that gladdened it had passed away, — the eye that would greet 
him was closed ere it startled at the dark coming of his hearse. 
He will come to his house — but oh, how changed ! — his foot- 
step will not echo on the gloomy threshold, nor his voice be 
heard in the empty hall ! The cry of lamentation will be heard 
then ; but not from him— though the partner of his bosom is 
GONE — it will be of those whose hearts are breaking for them 
both! 

His strength was terrible on the deck of battle — his courage 
calm and even where the dead and dying were a hearse for the 



858 MEMOIK OF WALTER COLTON. 

living. The arm of the Almighty was his shield, and his trust 
was in the God of his fathers. I heard the thunder of his deck 
when Albion bowed to his might; — he was stern in the conflict; 
but wept at its close o'er the valor of the conquered and fallen. 
The marvels of his might are hymned by the waves ; and their 
voice will be lieard till it is morn in the grave. 



A brief Address to the Cadets of the Partridge Military Academy at 
the Funeral Services of Mr. Ralph A. Wikoff, a Member from Ope- 
lousas, Louisiana. 

But a few days since and Wikoff moved among us the man- 
liest of us all ! The glow of his warm cheek, the movement of 
his sinewy arm, the bound of his measured tread, all told how 
strongly life dwelt within him. But now he lies there, pressed 
down under the cold hand of death ! 

He will never again be seen gliding from his apartment to fill 
his place in your ranks ; the sound of his footstep will never 
again answer to the deep roll of the morning drum ! That re- 
veille shall beat, but he will not arouse him from his rest. He 
has laid aside his martial dress for the cold drapery of the grave. 
Oh, Wikoff ! who can think of thee, of thy sun-bright hopes, 
the promise of thy manly virtues, the pledges of thine exalted 
worth, and not dissolve in grief over thy untimely end ! who that 
saw thee die, and heard thy latest prayer, but thinks of heaven ! 

Dear departed one, no parent with trembling anxiety bent over 
thy dying couch ; no sister with tender assiduity anticipated thy 
every want ; no brother was near to hear thy last request : thy 
dying couch was spread in a stranger-land, but there were those 
about thee strongly attracted by thy worth ; those who thrilled 
at every hope of life, and shod tears feelingly and fast when they 
closed thy dying eyes ; and there are those who with breaking 
hearts, will hold thee in long remembrance. Soldier, scholar, 
friend, companion, rest ! rest! 



ADDKESS AT THE GRAVE OF WIKOFF. 359 

Comrades of Wikoff ! ye who arose with him at the earliest 
light, and with him stood in solemn pause while we breathed 
our morning prayer to heaven ; ye who with him labored away 
the hours of light in the deep drift of thought, and with him 
kindled the lamp over the march of some mighty mind ; come 
ye around his hearse, gather close about his coffined clay, for 
though dead he speaks to each of you, " What thou doest, do 
quickly." Who can withstand the energy of those words ? Oh, 
thou pale oracle of death ! it were treason not to hear thee now. 
" What thou doest, do quickly." Yes, there is an emphasis in 
those words redoubled by him gone so young in life to the cold 
mantling of the shroud. 

Who is there among your ranks, more vigorous in your limbs, 
more sanguine in your hope of many days, than Wikoff 1 None I 
His v\^as a strength that seemed to hold no parley with disease, 
no compromise with the infirmities of our nature. But he is there 
relaxed in death ! We must go and consign him to the remorse- 
less grave ; w^e shall aw\ake over him our volleyed thunder, but 
he will sleep on till the trump of God summon him to the judg- 
ment-bar. 

Who is there among you not prepared to follow Wikoff ? — 
Hear him, for he speaks to you — " What thou doest, do quickly." 
You may be the one to companion him in the grave. Then that 
scene after death — oh, that undying soul ! — that spirit stamped 
with the immortal image of its Maker ! — if unprepared for heaven, 
whither with all its boundless capacities can it go 1 Dislodged 
from earth, an outcast from God — it must lie down in eternal 
anguish ! 

But I hear a voice from the recesses of that shroud, crying, 
"What thou doest, do quickly." It speaks to all — to you who 
totter under the infirmities of age, to you who walk erect in the 
stable strength of manhood, to you who are in the morning and 
growing vigor of life, for the grave is crowded with your equals. 
And you may be the next over whom the pall of that silent realm 



360 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

will be spread. The character which you carry with you to the 
grave, you will carry with you to the judgment-seat of Christ. 
You will not erase one of its darker, or increase one of its lighter 
shades. 

When the clods cease to rumble on the coffin, there, evermore, 
all is coldness, darkness, silence, death ! The busy world may 
move above them, but they know it not! The worm of corrup- 
tion may revel in their shroud, but they know it not ! Affection 
may go there to linger and to weep, but they know it not ! Pro- 
fane levity may go there and trample them down, but they know 
it not ! Those whom they left here among the living, may go 
down on the cold hearse to join them, but there will be no ques- 
tion, no greeting, no reply : they are laid into the silence and im- 
mutability of death ! But ye are still among the living, and I 
hear a voice again, and last from the tenant of that shroud — 
" What thou doest, do quickly." Are we silent and motionless 
still ? Is there no one who will struggle for the life of his soul ? 
Oh, the quietude of this fancied security is the noiseless harbin- 
ger of ruin. The water is stillest near the verge of the precipice. 
While I am speaking, the icy hand of death may be settling down 
upon some one in this assembly. Lay that hand to your heart; 
if it beat again, spend that breath in prayer for pardoning mercy ! 



A PLEA FOR THE GREEKS. 

There is a point in human suffering beyond which endurance 
is impossible. At this point nature will either struggle, gasp, 
and expire, or with one mighty effort burst the bonds which sub- 
ject her to suffering; while every element that has contributed 
to her woe seems only to have curbed her energies for a more 
intense reaction. Greece had reached that point, but her last 
convulsion burst her bonds, as the struggling volcano rends with 
its throes the rock-ribbed mountain. Greece had broken the 



A PLEA FOR THE GREEKS. 361 

serpent folds in which she was bound, and struggled into freer 
existence ; but in her last desperate struggle she roused up a 
foe whose character can be portrayed only by emblems drawn 
from the world of fiends. Thrilled with young life, her heart 
bounded with the joys of her infancy; but with the first swell of 
transport gushed her life-blood to the sabres of her enemy. She 
prayed for mercy, but received a deeper wound; she fled for 
protection to the horns of her altars, but they were hung with 
the mangled bodies of her priests ; she fled to the tombs of her 
forefiithers, but the violated dead told the fate of the living. The 
shades of Thermopylse, Platea, and Marathon begin to rise around 
her, bringing with them ten thousand images of the past, re- 
vealed with a dying glory that still linger upon them. 

Entranced amid these visions of her ancient might, Greece is 
herself again. One spontaneous universal rush of feeling thirsts 
for the dread onset — the wild storm that shall beat upon her 
grave, or subside into the peaceful hours of returning liberty. 
But courage is not strength; the heaven-ascending eagle the 
thunder-cloud will sometimes dash to the ground. Greece has 
launched herself upon a wave too boisterous for her feeble bark ; 
but shall her noble daring be her ruin ? Shall this bold expres- 
sion of her courage be the signal of her destruction ? Shall this 
nation, professing the same faith with ourselves, and struggling 
for the same freedom which we enjoy, be permitted to perish 
when her salvation lies in the breast of the American people 1 
Greece has looked, and still looks to us for aid. 

Tell me not that she is a faithless people, and unworthy of our 
co-operation. There may be individuals bearing the name of 
Greeks, who have betrayed the confidence reposed in them, but 
this is not the characteristic of the nation. The iron-handed 
oppression that has crumbled to dust the monuments of their 
pride, may have obscured, but it has not destroyed their national 
faith. That nation, which has for ages withstood the tide of 
barbarism that has swept down in its desolating track the shrines 

16 



362 MEMOm OF WALTER COLTON. 

and temples of every other realm, is not made up of treachery. 
That people who have for eighteen centuries maintained the reli- 
gion of the Cross at the expense of every thing else, and v^ho 
have fed their altars Vi^ith their ovi^n blood, have not been martyrs 
to a faith devoid of influence on their national character. 

No ; Greece is in ruins, but her ruins bear the bright impress 
of her integrity. Tell me not that she is a cruel, savage people, 
and undeserving our compassion, I know that sometimes the 
shaft aimed at her own vitals drank the blood of her captives. 
But was there no provocation for this dark deed? There was: 
it is revealed on that long road on which her fathers travelled 
down in chains to their graves ; it is traced in the ashes of her 
temples, palaces, and shrines ; it is heard in the wail of her 
widows and orphans ; it is murmured in the dying exclamations 
of her chiefs ; it knells from the prison and the block ; it per- 
vades that voiceless woe that weeps where Scio is no more, but 
which was once animate with beings young, beautiful, and gay, 
all murdered to appease a malice that riots in the misery it can 
inflict. Where is the human bosom in which vengeance could 
have slept amid such sights and sounds as these ? She must have 
been more or less than mortal not to have kindled into retribu- 
tion. 

Ask me not why Europe does not aid the Greeks; the answer 
is sealed up in the dark articles of the Alliance — that grave of 
liberty. Europe has injured Greece ; she has torn from her every 
memorial of her ancient name, but her very being. Europe has 
injured Greece ; she has urged her into a war, at perilous odds, 
with a merciless foe : Europe has held out pledges of aid and 
confederation in this struggle, which she never meant to redeem. 
Chilled into a cruel, unnatural insensibility, beneath the blighting 
influence of the Alliance, she sees without an emotion this fairest, 
loveliest star in all the heaven go down forever. But what has 
the cruelty and injustice of Europe to do with our duty"? 

Greece looks to us for aid : she looks to us for a generous 



PLEA FOR THE GREEKS. 363 

expression of our love for liberty, in a prompt endeavor to re- 
lieve her in this hour of distress. She looks to us as the first 
nation that has ever risen to rational permanent independence ; 
and having gained our own freedom, and tasted the sweets of 
liberty, she does not suppose us capable of indifference when 
struggling for her very being, dying for the common rights and 
privileges of man. Where is our gratitude ? Has not Greece 
enriched us with the productions of her immortal genius ? Have 
we not received from her a clue to every thing that raises us 
above stupid barbarism 1 And yet we are satisfied with doing 
nothing for her. 

While we have been shouting through our streets the man 
who nobly dared to embark his life and fortune for us in our 
struggle for independence, we forget the children of those in- 
trepid heroes who first taught us the use of the scimeter and 
shield, and from whose literature we derived our earliest notions 
of liberty. We have been deceived in relation to Greece : while 
we have supposed her prosperous, she has rapidly declined in her 
means of resistance ; this is the most perilous period of her long 
conflict. Her legislators are without the means of carrying their 
determinations into effect; her armies, thinned by death, are 
without the means of subsistence ; her crops are destroyed by 
the enemy before they can arrive at maturity ; no cheering pros- 
pect meets her at home, no sympathy greets her from abroad ; 
and to all human appearances she must perish, unless there is a 
speedy redeeming energy manifested in this country. 

It is in vain to tell us what Greece might have been, or might 
have done, had she not thrown the gauntlet in the face of the 
enemy : the gauntlet is thrown, the die is cast, and that, too, in 
a desperate uncertainty ; the storm she has raised has become 
too wild for her control ; her courage is far in the advance of her 
strength. Liberty or death is drawn in wild characters on the 
stern aspect of each Greek : he will be free, or the ground on 
which he stands shall be his sepulchre. 



364 MEMOIR OF WALTEK COLTON. 

They have been driven to this determination by sufFeringa 
which mock description. Roused from their slumbers at mid- 
night, they have been driven into hopeless flight ; their ears 
stunned with the cries of the suffering, and the yell of their 
savage murderers ; while the flames of their own dwellings were 
kindled over their retreat, traced in blood ; their parents, their 
wives, their children, every object around which affection could 
linger, torn from them ; their very prayers mocked by the horrors 
of a lingering death. Outraged humanity could endure no longer ; 
goaded to desperation, they have drawn their battle glaives, and 
swear never to sheathe them again, till they have exterminated 
these bloodhounds from the lands of their fathers; or they will 
sacrifice their lives to the nobleness of their purpose. They will 
find an asylum from these sufferings, though it is in the grave, and 
the last Greek will lie in his gore, before he will consent again 
to be the slave of a Turk. 

Yes, let that nation perish at once, rather than groan out a 
miserable existence under the Ottoman yoke; let the tempest 
that now beats upon her, bear away with it every relic of her 
departed glory, every memorial of her present existence. Never 
again let the eloquence of the orator thunder through her forum, 
the song of the minstrel gladden her halls, or the incense of 
gratitude ascend from her altars ; let every stream that wanders 
through her murmur only of ruin, every breeze that sweeps from 
the Morea to the mountain-top, tell only of ghastly desolation, 
every wave that breaks upon her shore, rumble like clods on the 
coffins of the dead. 



EDITOESHIP AT WASHINGTON. 365 



CHAPTER II. 

LIFE IN WASHINGTON, AND ENTRANCE UPON THE DUTIES 
OF A NAVY CHAPLAIN ON SHIP AND SHORE. 

" The seeds of wisdom early sown by the paternal hand, 
Thou hast borne through all thy wanderings wide over sea and land." 

In the year 1830 Mr. Colton resigned the Middle- 
town Professorship ; partly from a want of confidence 
in the system of mental and moral discipline there 
pursued. At the instance of Jeremiah Evarts, Esq., 
and other friends of the American Board of Commis- 
sioners for Foreign Missions, he proceeded to Wash- 
ington, and undertook the editorship of the Ameri- 
can Spectator and "Washington City Chronicle. The 
main object of its establishment was to controvert 
and prevent the policy recommended by President 
Jackson, in regard to the removal of the Georgia In- 
dians, threatening as it did the very existence of the 
American Mission among those Indians, and involv- 
ing our nation in a breach of faith. 

With this end in view, able articles were written 
both by himself and by Mr. Evarts, the signal ability 
and correctness of which were by no means to be 
measured by their success. The policy of the Ka- 



366 IVIEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

tional Executive was consummated, and the function 
of the Spectator ceased. While thus employed, and 
after his release from editorial duty, Mr. Colton was 
engaged for a little time in the pulpit of the church 
where it was the habit of General Jackson to attend 
public worship. An acquaintance so formed ripened 
into friendship, notwithstanding the contrariety be- 
tween the parties in politics. Mr. Colton was fre- 
quently an invited guest at the "White House ; and 
the President becoming aware of his infirm health, 
ere long offered him the choice of a chaplaincy in 
the ]^avy, or a foreign consulate. 

He chose the former, as better meeting his hopes 
of restoration to health, and was at once nominated 
by General Jackson to the chaplaincy of the West 
India squadron. Hostility was immediately aroused 
to this appointment among the friends of the Ad- 
ministration, and a strong remonstrance against it, 
numerously signed, was forwarded to Washington 
from New York. The argument urged against it 
was the public opposition of the nominee to the In- 
dian Removal policy of the Administration, then in 
the process of fulfilment. The President, however, 
was inflexible : he knew his man, and with chai'ac- 
teristic decision took the responsibility. 

The subject of this memoir entered upon the duties 
of a United States Naval Chaplain on the 29th of 
January, 1831, leaving ISTew York on that day in the 
U. S. ship Yincennes, for St. Thomas, Cuba, and Pen- 



SATIRICAL RHYMES FROM WASHINGTON. 367 



sacola. His moral courage and fidelity on one occa- 
sion while at the latter station, in exposing the 
malfeasance in a certain afikir of the Spanish In- 
tendant, came near to losing him his life. Through 
Divine Providence, it was the chaplain's deter- 
mined mien, and the sight of his finger upon a re- 
volver in self-defence, that deterred his angry ene- 
my, when he met him, from the vengeance he was 
meditating. 

Mr. Colton returned from this cruise to Wash- 
ington in the autumn of 1831, his health by no 
means good. A characteristic and amusing work 
of his the ensuing winter was a satirical jeu d'es- 
prit for one of the 'New England newspapers, en- 
titled 

FROM A POETICAL CORRESPONDENT. 

Washington City, Feb. 2d, 1832. 
Dear Sir, — I date, you see, from this great city, 

In which the wonderful of all the nation 
Assembled are ; also the gay and witty 

Of Europe's courts — a sort of delegation — 
As Randolph was, presenting his credentials 
To Monsieur Nicholas, in regimentals. 

You'll think it strange — but then the people here 

Live on pure politics — they boil, or bake, 
Or stew, or fry, or brew them into beer. 

Just as their different tastes suggest : — some make 
Them into puddings, but all eat them hot— 
" If 'tisn't so, I wish I may be shot !" 



368 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

Congress are sitting daily for the nation : — 

The House is making speeches, counting noses, 

To quash a ruinous appropriation — 

One which, if rightly I am told, proposes 

The building of a Light-house, whose erection 

Involves a constitutional objection. 

The Senate now are on the Tariff-laws,— 

Friend Clay has spoken, going the whole hog ; 

Hayne is opposed to their minutest clause, 
Declaring them a vile and loathsome clog 

Upon the nation's true prosperity — 

A curse to us and our posterity. 

Sir Isaac, whom the Granite State has placed 
Wrong end afore, as Paddy did his saddle 

Bestride the Body when he'd been disgraced, 
Was, yesterday, delivered of a twaddle. 

Which, if there's aught of clearness in my vision, 

Will scarce survive the pains of parturition. 

The President has had a ball extracted, 

From which arm I can't say, but that's no matter ; 

He got it in the gallant part he acted 

With one who, afterwards, raised such a clatter 

About a certain Oriental Room — 

Extravagantly furnished with a broom ! 

The first great Cabinet, at whose formation 

A darkening cloud of Jackson caps were thrown up, 

And which, at first, electrified the nation, 

Has, by a woman's stratagem, been blown up : — 

One fragment flew with such prodigious motion, 

It never lio-hted till it crossed the ocean ! 



SATIRICAL RHYMES FROM WASHINGTON. 369 

Calhoun, for love of mineralogy, 

Has sent for this wild fragment : he is right — 
For it has not the least analogy 

In all our choicest cabinets, and might, 
If lectured on in some New England college, 
Add some new theories to human knowledge. 

It is the rarest mineral — all sides — 

And yet, in fact, it has no sides at all ; 
Sharp-angled, yet, when tested, glides 

From 'neath the chisel like a polished ball ; 
It is translucent, too, and yet 'twould seem 
As if the surface only drank the beam. 

It has the strangest virtues ; for its touch 
Will make a man forget his bosom friends, — 

The beings he could never love too much 
He now regards as little less than fiends ; 

And such a powerful charm is on him thrown, 

He thinks of naught on earth except that stone ! 

Our Georgia friends have chained with thieves and knaves 
Two of those curious missionary preachers, 

Who oddly think that red men are not slaves, 
And that the Georgians are overreachers : — 

Georgia is right — the Bible was not given 

To show a Cherokee the road to heaven ! 

'Tis past dispute, an Indian has no claim 

To aught his patrimonial lands may yield, 
Unless it be a little flying game ; 

And when the rascal dares to dig his field 
For gold, though it should be his homestead lot, 
Lumpkin should have him either hung or shot. 
16* 



370 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

Congress will sit, 'tis said, till next September : 
Two hundred bills, at least, are on the table ; 

And then, you know, each inexperienced member 
Is primed with fifty speeches, each a cable, 

Which must by its interminable length 

Make up for its deficiency in strength. 

'Twould save much money, and more time. 
To get a gun that works by fire and steam, 

And then, let every member load and prime 
With all the speeches he can write or dream ; 

For ninety thousand, by this patent power. 

If Perkins 's right, are shot off in an hour ! 

A member moved the use of Congress Hall 
To Mr. Marsh, to hold a temperance meeting: 

Now one would think from love, or shame, that all 
Would give this scheme a sort of friendly greeting ; 

But many cried out, " No !" — thinking the body 

Required, at times, a little jog from toddy ! 

The vote was carried : when the ayes and noes 
Were counted, it was laughable to see 

How Speaker Stevenson detected those 
Who voted on the opposition : he 

Just cast a glance upon each rosy face, 

And gave the tippling vote its proper place. 

Some great men here are like a wild youth, rambling 
From all the paths of peace and piety. 

Carousing, drinking, frolicking, and gambling. 
Till they are sickened with satiety : 

'Twould seem as if they thought a public station 

Cancelled at once all moral obligation. 



SATIRICAL RHYMES FROM WASHINGTON. 371 

A man of titles here, not having been 

For several Sabbaths to his mother church, 

And rightly thinking it might be a sin 
To leave his whole religion in the lurch, 

Ordered his carriage up, and sent his — card — 

If he don't get to heaven, I think it's hard ! 

Few men are more respected here than Branch ; 

He heeds not now, and never did, those shocks 
Of public wrath because he would not launch 

The Pennsylvania from her steady stocks. 
And send to sea a worn-out, rotten frigate, 
Without a single cent to paint or rig it ! 

'Twas whispered here last night, extremely late, 

That Mr. Livingston will go to France — 
Mr. McLane be transferred to the State 

Department — Mr. Rives be sent to dance 
Attendance at St. James — and Amos Kendal 
Be Treasury Sec. — and that will surely end all. 

These are exchanges, I mean nothing more. 

For I respect these men, especially 
The President, since very long before 

His claims were canvassed, even in Tennessee, 
I fixed on him, and mentioned my intention 
Within a little family convention. 

It is the fashion here, among the great, 

For ladies, when they make their morning calls. 

To stay at home : the carriage goes in state, — 
A wench is in it, but so thickly falls 

Her veil, she's quite concealed ; the footman leaves 

The card, and separating friendship grieves ! 



372 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

Another fashion is, when invitations 
" To meet a friend" are issued, to invite 

At least a thousand — none of them relations : 
The beds are cast up garret for the night, 

And every room, instead of social ease, 

Presents a crov^ded, pent, and panting squeeze. 

But then it is the top-knot of the fashion 
To keep a parrot, for that bird was given, 

With all its prattling, imitative passion. 
To bring to earth the dialect of heaven : 

The very bird from whose celestial stammer 

Our mother Eve first learnt the Hebrew grammar. 

A great amusement, with the frisking fops, 
Is waltzing : this is a whirling dance, 

In which the parties move around like tops — 
I think 'twas introduced from France, 

Perhaps from Italy, or Ghent, or Cadiz : 

At any rate, it seems to charm the Ladies. 

The parties stand in couples, face to face. 
And most affectionately near each other; 

The lady then, as if she caught the embrace 
Of some sweet sister, or devoted brother, 

Raises her arms, while he, as purely chaste, 

Clasps her around the palpitating waist. 

And so they stand — her warm arms softly lying 
On him — and he, circling her gentle form — 

Their eyes are in each other's — sweet lips sighing 
A language inarticulate and warm : 

They seem, as love for them had but one riddle. 

And now they whirl in time to Sambo's fiddle ; — 



SATIRICAL EHYMES FROM WASHINGTON. 373 

And round and round they spin — an easy sweep 
Of thrilling limbs and mounting blood, while she 

Tells every nerve its vestal vow to keep, 
And only lets it off this once — while he, 

At every freedom which he feels or sees, 

Just gives her little waist another squeeze. 

Then in this dance the parties seem so free 

Of all embarrassment — so unrestrained, 
Gentle, and loving — ^they appear to be 

Made for each other ; not to be enchained 
In marriage bonds — quite a superfluous fashion, 
When there is such a warmth and depth of passion ! 

'Tis whispered slyly that the President 

Is soon to marry off another niece — 
A lovely creature, now a resident 

With him : — Well, in these piping times of peace, 
'Tis well, perhaps, for men to think of marriage. 
And ladies, too, if they can keep their carriage. 

I think myself, sometimes, of getting married ; 

But when I look around me for a minute, 
And number up ho.w many have miscarried, 

Who now would give the world were they not in it, 
My courage fails me: so, with sigh and tear, 
I put the matter off another year ! 

The truth is, that I cannot bear the crying 

Of a child, not even for variety ; 
But then, the melancholy thought of dying, 

And sulking from the surface of society 
Unwept, as falls a pebble through the wave, 
Might almost break the slumbers of the grave. 



374 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

But I am wandering without being witty, 
And that's intolerable : I think a person 

An object of the most contemptuous pity 

Who imitates the style of James Macpherson — 

Loose and erratic, without sense or vigor, 

And robbing heaven and hell to find a figure ! 

A spirit's waking in the Old Dominion, 

Strong as the thunder when it leaves the cloud. 

Breaking the chains of riveted opinion, 

And raising thousands, who are basely bowed 

In bondage, to the cheering, changeless light. 

That dawns at last on slavery's bitter night. 

May this strong spirit travel through the land. 
Trampling in dust the fetters of the slave, 

And leading forth the ransomed, as the band 

That hymned their triumph o'er the Egyptian wave 

Then with this stain effaced, its guilt forgiven, 

Our land may win the warmest smile of Heaven ! 

'Tis whispered briskly now, that R. M. Johnson 
Succeeds the little man of Kinderhook : 

This will be any thing but " Monsieur Tonson^'' — 
For sure there's not a simpering breath or look 

Softens the Colonel, in a single spot — 

He's stern as was Tecumseh, whom he shot. 

But then I hope the Colonel, should he sail 
As our august ambassador to London, 

Will not attempt to run a Sunday mail. 

Nor make the English think that they're undone, 

Because a letter pauses on its way. 

While one can get to church, and kneel, and pray. 



SATIRICAL RHYMES FROM WASHINGTON. 375 

The letters which are written from this city, 

Save this of mine, are destitute of fact, 
As any wandering, wild, romantic ditty ; 

They show, sometimes, 'tis true, a little tact, 
And now and then one seems exti*emely grave — 
Which is a bass note on the lying stave. 

But this of mine, at least, shall not deceive you — 
'Tis true, as are the last words of the dying : 

I know there's nothing which can so much grieve you 
And your fraternity, as would a lying 

Letter ; or one which barely you suspect 

To be conceived or colored for effect. 

Adieu ! — 'tis late, my little ones are all 
In bed — bless me ! — I've none ! not e'en a wife ! 

To share with me what you most rightly call 
The sweet, seraphic harmonies of life. — 

Just look for one who's tired of living single, 

And recommend — 

Your faithful friend — 

McFlNGAL. 



376 MEMOIR OF WAJLTER COLTON. 



CHAPTER III. 

CRUISE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN, AND LIFE AND LABORS IN 
THE NAVY-YARDS. 

" Thy words have come from many a clime, to many a human ear ; 
Thy pathway on the Deep has been in danger and in fear ; 
Ever the breath of prayer went up on wing of darkest storm, 
And daily with the sailor band he lowly bent the form." 

Early in the year 1832, Mr. Colton was ordered 
to the Mediterranean in the U. S. Frigate Constel- 
lation, Commodore Read. The volumes entitled 
" Ship and Shore, in Madeira, Lisbon, and the 
Mediterranean," and " Land and Lee in the Bos- 
phorus and JEgean," together with the "l^otes on 
France and Italy," in this volume, prove him to 
have been no idle wanderer along the classic shores 
of " The Great Sea." 

During the three years of his absence on this 
cruise he also visited Paris and London, and arrived 
back with the squadron in December of 1834, his 
health still infirm. That winter he gave himself 
very diligently and successfully to procuring the 
passage of a bill by Congress for increasing the pay 
of Naval Chaplains from six hundred and fifty a 



STATE OF ABSTRACTION. 3Y7 

year, to a salary of twelve hundred dollars, when on 
duty, and eight hundred when off. 

In the spring of 1835 he was assigned to the Naval 
Station of Charlestown, Mass., where he addressed 
himself with commendable assiduity to the duties of 
his post. He preached regularly once on the Sab- 
bath, besides other labors for the good of seamen, 
and was often heard in the pulpits of Boston and 
Charlestown. 

An intimate friend and brother says of him at 
this period, that he lived much in dream-land. Al- 
ways more or less addicted to ruminating, he was, 
during a year or two of his stay in Boston, almost 
entirely buried up in his own thoughts. He became 
extremely absent-minded ; and ludicrous things are 
related of him in this period. He lost his sym- 
pathy with the outward world, except so far as was 
absolutely necessary for his professional routine; 
and he seldom opened a newspaper or book, al- 
though his sideboards were well filled with choice 
volumes. 

" I have often gone down from Andover to Boston, 
(says his brother at this time,) entered his room, found 
him sitting in his old arm-chair, resting his head upon 
his left arm, his fore-finger against his left temple, 
looking upon the fire, utterly unconscious of my 
presence, till almost a blow from my hand brought 
him to his senses. Then would come some of his 
keenest sallies of wit or humor ; he was just in the 

15 



MEMOIR OF WALTEE COLTON. 



vein. His friends who knew him best, had strong 
fears lest he was injuring himself, body and mind, 
by such a course." 

Self-satisfied, also, that he was doing himself harm, 
he resolved to change his course. He betook him- 
self again to books, and mingled more in society. A 
well-written series of letters on slavery, at this time, 
addressed to Dr. Channing, in the Boston Courier, 
was consequent upon this change. He also took 
hold of his Sea Journal and completed its prepara- 
tion for the press, under the title of "A Yisit to 
Athens and Constantinople." 

About the same time he spent a few days at An- 
dover, and preached in the Seminary Chapel on Sab- 
bath morning, and at the Old South Church in the 
evening, and never, it was said, more effectively. 
He was now fairly waked from his sea of dreams, 
and dangerous as had been his indulgence, that 
dreaming may not, on the whole, have been an in- 
jury to him, being stopped, as it not always is, at a 
safe point. 

Early in the year 1837 he was appointed Histori- 
ographer and Chaplain to the South Sea Surveying 
and Exploring Squadron. He studied with reference 
to it for nearly a year, when the reduction of the 
force at first designed for the Expedition, and the 
consequent resignation of some of his associates, to- 
gether with the infirm state of his health, making it 
doubtful if he could bear the hardships of the voyage, 



LETTER FROM BOSTON IN WINTER. 379 

led tiim to obtain a release from that appointment. 
At this period, being in Washington, he edited for a 
nniiiber of months the Colonization Herald. 

By the close of this year (1837) he returned to 
Boston, whence he playfully wrote to his brother 
Aaron, at Andover, in his characteristic manner, as 
follows : 

The weather has been intensely cold here ; it must have been 
still more severe with you, for we are in the sunny basin of an 
Alpine hollow, compared to the everlasting avalanche of your 
condition. Take care that the bubbling founts of your genius 
be not frozen up ; the heart may gather to itself an ice which no 
sun can melt away. This climate is fit for nothing but bears 
and badgers, and such other animals as live in " thick-ribbed ice," 
and dwell " in cold obstruction's apathy." I wish I were in the 
South of France, or in Naples, which Gibbon — looking at the 
evergreen landscape, and the burning crater of Vesuvius — profane- 
ly pronounced to be on the confines of Heaven and Hell. If my 
locomotives be not utterly ice-bound, I intend to make you a 
visit this winter, and shall of course expect to find you delving 
into the intricacies of some theological mystery, which lies, per- 
haps, beyond the ken of an archangel. What fools we all are ! 
The plain and practical are forgotten in an enthusiasm for the 
obscure and useless. Were the moon to come so near our earth 
that it could be reached without the adventures of a balloon, few 
would go to measure its mountains or wander by its streams. 
There would be no difficulty and romance in the expedition. It 
is just so in reaching heaven — the true path is too plain and 
simple. But persuade mankind — and it might easily be done — 
that they can reach the blessed world by a descent through the 
centre of the ocean, and you would see them pushing off in their 
little canoes by thousands. Do you go for the plam and practical. 



380 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

Soon after the opening of 1838, Mr. Colton was 
assigned to the Chaplaincy of the ITaval Station at 
Philadelphia, where, with the consent of the Navy 
Department, in connection with two or three able 
associates, he was induced to unite in the editorship 
of the Independent ISTorth American newspaper. 
His intended track and aim as an editor were early 
projected in the following leader : 

Instead of delineating an editorial career, from which we may 
constantly deviate, and holding out pledges which we can never 
redeem, we will trace the outline of what an editor should be. 

A man who conducts a public journal should possess a sound, 
discriminating mind. He should be able to seize the strong 
points of a question, and enforce them with his whole energy. 
He should be able to hold the question steadily before the eye 
of his own mind, till he has traced it out in all its ramifications, 
and then impress it, with the distinctness of life, upon the intel- 
lect and hearts of others. He should be able to weigh moral 
evidence, and be so free of bias and prejudice himself as to let 
the scale turn vdth the slightest preponderance of probabilities. 

He should be a man of enlightened, liberal sentiments. He 
may have principles and opinions of his own, but they should 
ever be those conclusions in which he has rested, after a con- 
scientious improvement of all the light and information within 
the compass of his faculties. He should hold his most favorite 
opinion at the entire disposal of evidence. His religious creed 
should catch every fresh accent that may break from the oracles 
of God. His political faith should be open to every new ray of 
light that may strike it from the whole Universe of Mind. 

He should be a devoted Patriot. The affection that binds 
him to his country should be as unchanging as the first great 



THE DUTIES OF AN EDITOR. 381 



law of nature. He should rejoice in feeling himself indissolubly 
wed to her weal or woe, and stand prepared to protect her in 
every hour of adversity and peril. He should ever aim to cast a 
true and constant light on the path of her duty, and amid all the 
conflicts of party jealousy and interest, still cling to his country 
with increased devotion. And should foreign aggression threaten 
the land of his pride, it should ever be the cherished resolve of 
his heart, that the ruthless invader of her peace should tread over 
his grave before he could effect his malignant purpose. 

He should be an ardent lover of virtue : he should court her 
sacred presence ; live in the smiles of her countenance, feast on 
her unfading beauty, have his garments redolent with her fra- 
grant breath, nor attempt to lay one gem on her shrine that has 
been sullied by passion : vice, her mortal foe, should be the ob- 
ject of his direst antipathies. This profane harpy, if allowed to 
come within the compass of his vision, should never touch the 
sacred ermine of his robe. His heart should be so nicely attuned 
to moral excellence, that every pure, generous, or lofty feeling 
reflected upon it from mankind, will make it discourse eloquent 
music. 

He should be an ardent lover of truth. From all the tumult 
and conflict of human opinion he should ever repair to the quiet 
shrine of this Divinity, and, laying the richest offerings of his in- 
tellect upon her altar, listen with more than oriental devotion to 
her infallible dictates. Every word should be treasured in his 
heart, as a jewel of priceless worth, and even her softest whisper 
linger in his memory, as the last words of one whose virtues 
have passed under the seal of immortality. 

He should be a man of a generous, forgiving temper. Nothing 
like vindictiveness should ever mingle in the cup of his nature, 
no spirit of retaliation ever overcast the calm sunshine of his soul. 
Injured, or wantonly misrepresented, he should never lose his 
confidence in the ultimate and impartial convictions of man. 
Surrounded by the convulsions of party spirit, he should be like 



382 MEMOIR OF WALTER OOLTON. 

the polar star, shedding its clear and steady light on the conflict 
and the storm. 

He should be a man of humane sensibility. His heart should 
be vital with sympathy for the needy, and overflowing with in- 
born eloquence for the oppressed. He should be quick to discern 
the half-concealed intimations of modest sufferance, and be able 
to read the tale of sorrow in the tear that would blot it out. His 
bosom should be that mirror of humanity upon which every form 
and expression of grief may cast its undiminished and unex- 
aggerated lineaments ; and these faithful representations he 
should hold up to the eye of those whose charity, like his own, 
will not evaporate in idle declamation. 

He should take a deep and thrilling interest in the great be- 
nevolent enterprises of the age. He should strive to cast a 
steady embankment against that fiery current upon which his 
fellow-beings are reeling in drunken delirium to perdition. He 
should succor those who are sacrificing their best strength in 
efforts to arrest this plague, bringing with it more woes and sor- 
rows than the seventh curse that lighted on Egypt. He should 
give his firm assurances to the men who are laying the founda- 
tions of those institutions where the helpless, the forsaken, and 
the insane may find an asylum from their wretchedness. 

He should have warm words of encouragement for those who 
would wipe from our national character those guilty stains which 
point unerringly to the chain of the slave, and the profaned rights 
of our common nature. He should strengthen the efforts of 
those who would rear for our country the enlightened and vir- 
tuous, to sustain the ark of our holy faith when those who now 
bear it shall be gathered to their fathers. He should send a 
cheering voice to those who will not rest in their sacred enter- 
prise, till the oracles of God are heard in every human habitation. 
His spirit should be abroad, appealing to all hearts, raising the 
torpid, enlightening the ignorant, strengthening the weak, re- 
lieving the oppressed, encouraging the good, awing the profane, 

16 



CONDUCT IN THE EDITORIAL CHAIR. 383 

till rigliteousness, mercy, and truth make an Eden of earth, and 
earth an emblem of Heaven. 

A co-laborer in the office of the North American, 
speaking of his own connection with Mr. Colton, in 
that paper, says of him that he wrote with mnch 
care, and, indeed, required so much time for what he 
composed, that he could not attend to the general 
duties of the editoi*ship. " His articles told when 
they were finished, and were of great value. But he 
did not incline to trouble himself beyond the writing 
of one or two articles a day : he would rarely look 
over more than two or three exchange papers. He 
was always pleasant, often inclined to say but little, 
generally a man of few w^ords in the office, and never 
talked fluently. What he did say was said with 
emphasis, and had point. He was beloved by all 
who were in the office of the IsTorth American, and 
regarded as a noble-hearted man." 

A clerical friend of Mr. Colton's, in Philadelphia, 
gives the following testimony to his conduct of the 
[N'orth American :— " Though a secular paper, yet, as 
its gentlemanly and Christian Editor, he so molded 
its moral and religious influence as to secure for it 
the patronage of the best part of the community. 
During the time of his editorship, it was my pleasure 
to see him almost daily, and I know that his great 
motive in seeking and occupying that position was 
not mercenary, but that he might be the instra- 



3Si MEMOIE OF WALTER COLTON. 

ment, through that medium, of doing more extensive 
good." 

Although he was far from possessing all the habits 
or health to make him the patient working Editor of 
a Daily, he labored assiduously at his post, and con- 
tinued to acquit himself reputably in that position 
until compelled by government to abandon it or quit 
the Xavy. This was owing to the politics of the 
paper being contrary to those of the Tice-Presi- 
dent and his Administration, into whose hands the 
reins of power passed, at Washington, U230n the un- 
timely death of General Harrison. 

Mr. Colton veiy wisely chose the alternative of 
quitting the Editorial corps of the Xorth American, 
rather than to lose his commission in the Xavy. He 
now devoted himself almost exclusively to the duties 
of his Chaplaincy at the Xa^y-Tard and Xaval 
Asylum, for which latter he procured a grant from 
the Secretary of the Navy for an organ, a Reading- 
Eoom, and pecuniary aid in his efforts for promoting 
temperance among the seamen. He preached also, 
in their behalf, very frequently in the city churches. 
He wrote, moreover, at this time, a vigorous reply to 
Bishop Kenrick's letter on the School Question, 
which was published in the Quarterly Protestant 
Peview, and afterwards in pamphlet form, under the 
title of "The Bible in Public Schools."' 

In the month of June, 18^3, Mr. Colton's filial 
sensibilities were severelv tried in the death of his 



LETrKE OX A MOTHEE's DEATH. 385 

beloved Mother, at the age of seventy-two. She was 
a woman of excellent sense, clear practical judgment, 
and of a most amiable and cheei-fiil temper. She had 
been a fond and faithftd Mother to all her nmnerons 
offspring. Walter deeply felt her death. He was 
another instance in proof of the remark, which will 
undoubtedly hold almost universally true, that every 
man who has risen to eminence will be found to have 
paid a marked respect to his mother in early Kfe. 
"Walter had been a dutiful and affectionate son, and 
this is his tribute to her memory, in a letter to his 
Father, dated Philadelphia, June 20th, 18-13 : 

My Dear Father : — 

I never knew, till this hour, the full force of those ties which 
bound me to my Mother, and which still bind me to you. It is 
the disruption of the cord that tests its strength. Our dear 
Mother has gone I We shall go to her, but she will not return 
to us; and yet in my dreams I see her with that same kind, 
cheerful, maternal look which she always wore. How meekly, 
yet how resolutely, she bore up against disease, and at last tran- 
quilly committed her spirit to the hands of Jesus 1 She was 
truly a Mother; she was such in the largest and best sense of 
that term. She had room in her heart for us all ; she never 
wearied in her cares, and in times of the greatest adversity main- 
tained her wonted cheerfulness. She died as she lived, without 
an enemy, and without reproach. She died in the Faith, and has 
gone to inherit the promises. Your loss, dear Father, in the 
death of Mother, not even your children can adequately compre- 
hend. You are, indeed, alone ; yet not alone, dear Father, for 
we are with you, and we cherish for you a love and respect which 
we shall carry with us to our graves. The more lonely your 

IT 



386 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

position, the more endeared do you become to us. Our filial 
aifection shall take the place of that which they felt over whom 
the grave has closed. It is but a few years ere we must all go 
the way whence we shall not return. With you and dear de- 
parted Mother, may we sleep in Jesus, and wake to a happy 
resun-ection. What was once our Home, is now a Home no 
more ; Mother is not there. It will be in vain to try to make it 
a Home. I have no heart for the elfort. I think it well, dear 
Father, that you are with sister Susan, and hope the arrange- 
ment will be permanent. We shall all feel it a privilege to use 
our means and best efforts to promote your comfort. 

I have been intending to write you for a long time, and half 
reproached myself for having delayed it. It might have been 
son-.e consolation to Mother; but she had higher consolations to 
sustain her. A child can never repay a parent's care, he can 
never requite a Mother's love. All he can do falls immeasurably 
below that Love which watched over his cradle, nursed him, and 
cheerfully submitted to weariness, privation, and exhaustion, to 
rear him into youth and manhood. And then a Father's care, 
his hopes, his prayers ! What can repay these ? Nothing ; no, 
nothing within his utmost efforts. He can only look up, imbibe 
his spirit, and imitate his virtues. God grant I may be able to 
do this. I would send my tenderest sympathy to all my Brothers 
and Sisters. We are all bereaved, deeply bereaved. But we 
should be devoutly grateful in our sorrow, that our dear Mother 
was spared to us so long, and that our venerated Father still 
lives. Pray for us all, dear Father, that this great affliction be 
sanctified to us for our good, and that God will graciously re- 
member us in that day when he shall number up his jewels. 

Your dutiful son, 

Walter. 

In the year 1844 Mr. Colton was elected Anniver- 
sary Poet for the Literary Societies in the Yermont 



LITEHARY LABORS AND MARRIAGE. 387 

University, at Burlington. Speaking of this play- 
fully to his brother, and of his other literary and be- 
nevolent labors at that time, he says, " I have waked 
up from my Eip Yan Winkle sleep, and I am now 
going for action — for doing good — nor do I mean to 
slumber again until that last sleep into which the 
most restless must at length sink." 

In August of the same year he was married at 
Philadelphia, to a lady of the same family name, 
whose traits of character, and cheerful, sunny temper 
he found eminently congenial with his own ; and her 
personal charms and accomplishments such as to 
make his conjugal lot eminently felicitous. In the 
summer of 1845 they visited together his friends in 
Vermont. 

Mr. Colton wsls in a genial mood, his spirits buoy- 
ant, and his health much better than usual. His wit 
on the way was keen and irrepressible, his humor 
salient and jocose ; and he enjoyed highly the ride, 
the scenery, the people, and every thing he met, and 
he made all about him happy with his playful 
strokes and turns. A travelling companion says of 
him at this time : " Beyond any thing I ever saw, 
strangers were taken with him as a fellow-passenger. 
It was amusing to see the interest he awakened in 
those who had never met him before. He was the 
life of all the company." 

After returning from the Green Mountains, the 
remainder of the summer was passed at watering- 



MEMOm OF WALTER COLTON. 



places on the seaboard. From Cape May we find 
the following fanciful correspondence in irony for the 
North American : 

Messrs. Editors : — The people at the Cape have been thrown 
into a great state of excitement to-day, by .some of the most 
stupendous phenomena connected with the ocean. The extreme 
coldness of the last night was accounted for by the discovery, at 
daylight this morning, of an enormous iceberg, moving majesti- 
cally in towards the Cape. The summits of the soaring mass 
were lost in the clouds ; between the glittering pinnacles which 
seemed to pierce the blue dome of heaven, the morning star 
looked forth with a pale and troubled aspect. It was at least 
ten o'clock before the sun was sufficiently high to scale its 
steeps; at last, its light rushed over its summits with the breadth 
and force of a mighty cataract. All its cliifs and caverns now 
became visible, and threw their spectral terrors on the eye : a 
wolf was seen chasing a goat among its crags ; an eagle circled 
around one of its loftiest turrets ; while a vulture had pounced 
on a pig, that squealed most piteously in its talons ! 

The water was now seen to heave on one side of the iceberg, 
and immediately a succession of blows was given it which shook 
the whole mountain mass. Judge of our surprise on discover- 
ing that this mist-enveloped battering-ram was an enormous 
whale ! At every stroke of his tail, vast sheets of pale light 
were thrown from the iceberg, which, falling on the faces of the 
spectators, made them look like an army of dead men ! I had 
read that the whale has been known to cut a Ship of the Line 
in two with a single stroke of his tail, but still had no concep- 
tion of his enormous strength. The iceberg shook and reeled 
under its blows as if an earthquake had hold of it. Every blow 
was followed by the plunge of some lofty pinnacle or stupen. 
dous crag into the ocean, which threw up clouds of spray, over 
which a hundred rainbows stretched their magnificent arches. 



COEEESPONDENCE FEOM CAPE MAY. 389 

At this moment a thunder-cloud of intense darkness, which 
had been hovering more remotely from the scene, stationed it- 
self near the iceberg, and began to play upon it with its red 
bolts. Splinters of ice flew like arrows in every direction, and 
large masses whirled away, like comets from the sun, with white 
bears still clinging to them. The cloud now changed its posi-^ 
tion, and unmasked a battery, compared with which the war of 
Waterloo would be but the report of a bursting bubble. The 
iceberg was split into a thousand pieces, and disappeared in the 
tumultuous waters. 

The wild animals that inhabited it were seen everywhere 
floating on the waves. They made immediately for the Cape, 
but, on reaching the beach, were caught and secured by the stout 
nets which are used here for catching sturgeon. Cages are now 
being built for them, and they vdll soon be exhibited as the Ice- 
berg Menagerie. Never before has zoology achieved such a 
rich acquisition. One man devoted to this science, in the ec- 
stasy of his feelings, went to turning somersets. The most cu- 
rious of the animals caught is a Mermaid. She resembles a 
dark-eyed Spanish girl of sixteen : her raven tresses fall round 
her like a flowing robe, and so conceal her form, that one of 
your exquisites made love to her. She speaks the Arabic. 

Another great curiosity is the Porphyrion — a bird known to 
ancient Greece, but not heard of since. It is about the size of 
our chanticleer, unwebfooted, snow-white body, with blue wings 
and red crest. Aristotle says of this bird : " It kept strict watch 
over the married women, whose indiscretions it immediately de- 
tected and revealed to their husbands ; after which, knowing the 
revengeful spirit of ladies, it very prudently hung itself." This 
bird is looked upon here with a great deal of suspicion by the 
ladies. One of them told me she would wring his neck for him 
the first time she got a chance. 

The ocean near the beach was again suddenly thrown into 
commotion, when up rose, like a long ridge of rocks, the Sea- 



890 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

serpent ! The whale that had lashed the iceberg was endeavor- 
ing to strike him with his tail, and at last succeeded, when the 
serpent threw his head in agony some thirty feet out of the 
water — the very lightning flashing from its forked tongue. With 
one sweep he threw himself, life an enormous Anaconda, directly 
around the whale, just back of the fore fins. At each convulsive 
constriction, as he tightened his folds, a column of water flew 
from the blowing hole of the whale sky high. He plunged and 
reared, canted and struggled, to extricate himself from the folds 
of the serpent, but in vain. At last, in the struggle, the ser- 
pent's head had come near his own, when he severed it with his 
jaws at once from the body! A torrent of blood rushed out 
which incarnadined the sea around for leagues. The folds of 
the serpent only tightened themselves the more in his death- 
convulsions, and the whale was evidently in greater agony than 
before. 

At this moment a sword-fish of vast size and strength joined 
the contest, and plunged his weapon, now on this side, now on 
that, and now from beneath, into the whale. A stream of blood 
followed every lunge ; the convulsions of the whale grew less, 
and it was evident that life was fast ebbing away. A physician 
being asked if he did not think the whale quite dead, said he 
probably was, but he could not speak positively unless able to 
feel his pulse ! A flood-tide rising some fifteen feet higher than 
usual, now rolled the whale, with the serpent around him, to the 
beach, and, as it retired, left them high and dry. The sword-fish, 
unable to extricate his weapon from its last lunge where it had 
penetrated a bone, was also borne by the whale to the shore. 
Several yoke of stout oxen were employed to disengage the 
folds of the serpent ! 

This monster measures, from tail to snout, three hundred and 
fifty feet! It has thirty-seven bumps, each shaped like a bell 
with a clapper in it, and altogether they play a magnificent 
chime ! Start one, and they all ring in concert. They are now 



CORRESPONDENCE FROM CAPE MAY. 391 

playing a sort of funeral hymn ! The skin of the serpent and 
these bells are to be preserved and suspended around the lee- 
berg Menagerie. Their music will occasion a great rush of 
travellers to this country from Europe. I should not be sur- 
prised to see " Little Vic." among them. 

As for the whale, the jaws are to be suspended across the 
Rocky Mountains as a sort of ladder by which to get over to 
Oregon ! The stump orators have taken the blubber, and the 
ladies, as might have been expected, have seized on the bone. 
The weapon of the sword-fish is to be sent to Captain Tyler. 

P.S. — The Porphyrion is dead. The ladies have poisoned 
him! 

Yours very truly, W. C. 



392 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 



CHAPTER IV. 

DEPARTURE FOR THE PACIFIC, LIFE AND LABORS IN CALIFOR- 
NIA, AND PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 

" Thro' orange groves, in tropic climes, thou hast wandered many a day, 
And to the Ophir land of gold thou early ledd'st the way." 

At the close of the summer of 1845, on returning 
to Philadelphia, Mr. Colton found a paj^er from the 
K'avy Department ordering him forthwith to sea, in 
the frigate Congress, bound for the Pacific. He at 
once reported himself for duty, and in twenty-four 
hours was at his post in l^orfolk, — home and all its 
domestic charms, whose silken cords were now fairly 
around him, exchanged at once for the asperities of a 
man-of-war. 

A letter from Norfolk to one of his brothers has 
this pleasing view of the Congress ; 

We have the noblest frigate in the service — admirable officers 
— and as fine a crew as ever trod a deck. I have been here al- 
most two weeks, and have not seen one sailor intoxicated, nor 
one punished for any offence ; and — what is still more remark- 
able — I have not heard any profaneness, either among the crew 
or officers. I came on board a thorough teetotaller, and such 
shall remain. No one here shall drink even wine under the 
countenance of my example. I am anxious to have evening 



LIFE AOT) LETTERS AT SEA. 393 

prayers — have proposed it to Commodore Stockton, and he has 
it now under consideration. I intend to devote myself thor- 
oughly to my appropriate duties. We have four hundred souls 
on board, all told. I now intend to keep a journal, which I can 
use on my return, if God permit. 

The course, issues, and incidents of that voyage in 
the Flag-ship of the Pacific Squadron, are given with 
a rare grace and felicity in the volumes entitled 
" Deck and Port," and " Three Years in California," 
to which it is only necessary to refer the reader. 
His personal habits at sea may be gathered from the 
following extract from a letter to his wife, dated At 
Sea, ]^ov. 18th, 184:5 : 

We have just discovered a sail on our starboard beam, and are 
going to tack ship and run down to her. How glad shall I be 
to get another line to my dear Lilly! I would not miss the 
chance for a month's pay. And ah, how I wish some messenger- 
bird could bring me a line from her ! My spirits sink when I 
think, dear Lilly, how long it will be before I hear from you. 
May God take care of my lamb. 

It is now twenty days since we sailed from Hampton Roads. 
We have sailed some twenty-five hundred miles, and are yet 
four thousand from Rio ; but in the last half of the passage we 
shall have the trade-winds, and shall sail faster. In thirty days 
more we expect to make Rio, which, by the route we are taking, 
is over six thousand miles from Norfolk. I have suffered but 
very little from sea-sickness : I bathe morning and night in salt 
water : I turn in at ten o'clock, and rise before the sun. 

We have lost one man since we left Norfolk. He was taken 
insane, and jumped overboard in the night. His name was Amy : 
he was from Philadelphia, where he left a sister, of whom he of- 
17* 



394 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

ten spoke. He was a very good man, and was much regretted 
by us all. I was requested by the Commodore to deliver a 
funeral address on the occasion, which, of course, I did. The 
crew were very attentive, and seemed to lament poor Amy. 

I keep up my journal punctually, write a page of letter-sheet 
every day, read and write also on my poem. I spend no time 
in idle conversation — take regular exercise. Our fresh provisions 
are almost out : I live now mostly on rice and potatoes. How 
I long for a cup of milk ! even a glass of good pure water would 
be a luxury. I adhere to my teetotalism : we have a temperate 
mess ; there is not a hard drinker among them, and, with sev- 
eral, wine is only a ceremony, and it will become so, I appre- 
hend, with most of them before long. Our Commodore is a 
very agreeable man, so is Capt. Du Pont : I have every kind at- 
tention paid me. 

From Rio Janeiro, also, on the first of January, 
1846, he wrote in these terms, along with much that 
was endearing and tender: — ''Let us live through 
the year which we have commenced in tender sym- 
pathy, love, and confidence. Let us live nearer to 
the throne of mercy, cultivate a more earnest spirit 
of piety, and seek to do good. May the errors of the 
past year be pardoned by Infinite pity, and the to- 
kens of a heavenly Father's love be extended to us." 

The published volumes of Mr. Colton henceforth 
furnish almost all the autobiographical particulars of 
his life around Cape Horn and in the Pacific, which 
need to be known ; and with the additional charm 
which one's story always has, when told by himself, 
after he is gone, To them, therefore, the reader is 



EEVIVAJL IN THE FRIGATE CONGRESS. 396 

commended who desires to be informed of the public 
course of a man, whose name is closely blended with 
the early fortunes of the golden empire of the Pa- 
cific. 

The chaplain's devotion to the religious interests 
of the seamen in the Congress was not without its 
visible effect and reward. On the 27th of July, 1846, 
he wrote from Monterey as follows : 

We have had for two or three months past an increased atten- 
tion in our ship to the subject of religion. It began in my Bi- 
ble-class, but spread beyond that number among the crew. As 
the interest deepened, I established a prayer-meeting, which has 
been held three times a week in the store-room, an ample and 
convenient apartment for that purpose. Here you will find at 
these meetings some sixty sailors on their knees at prayer j 
some thirty of them, it is believed, have recently experienced 
religion; the rest are inquirers, and come to be prayed for. 
Among the subjects of the work are some of the most efficient 
seamen in our ship, but who have hitherto led a thoughtless life. 
Those who give evidence of having experienced a change of 
heart are called upon to pray. Their prayers have no finished 
sentences, but they are full of heart and soul. When they speak 
in their exhortations it is with great directness and force. It 
would affect you to tears to hear these rough, hardy sailors 
speak in these meetings of their sins, of the compassion of 
Christ, and their new-born hopes. Almost every evening some 
new one, the last perhaps expected, comes in, and, kneeling 
down, asks to be prayed for. These meetings have no opposi- 
tion among the officers, and very little, if any, among the men. 
There has been a great change in the Navy within a few years 
on this subject. We can now have Bible-classes and prayer- 



396 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

meetings on board our men-of-war, and find among our officers 
many who will encourage them, and not a few who will give 
them their efficient aid. 

On the day following the above date, (being the 
28th of July, 1846,) Mr. Colton was appointed Al- 
calde of Monterey and its jurisdiction, by the Amer- 
ican military authorities, the United States Flag hav- 
ing been first raised there and at San Francisco, and 
the Mexican authorities displaced, on the 10th of 
July. After exercising this ofiice for nearly two 
months under a military commission, on the 15th of 
September, 1846, he was elected to the same by the 
citizens of Monterey, as first Alcalde or chief Judge. 
His jurisdiction extended over three hundred miles 
of territory, and from his Alcalde's Court there was 
no appeal. 

He so fulfilled the responsible duties of that office 
as to secure universal respect and admiration. The 
commander of an American merchant ship, who was 
at Monterey during a part of Mr. Colton's administra- 
tion, says, that "from all persons whom I heard 
speak of him, whether in his official or private rela- 
tions, there was but one opinion, and that was, his 
uncompromising justice to all under every circum- 
stance. If a dispute was to be adjusted, ' well, we'll 
submit to Mr. Colton, and there shall be no appeal 
from his decision; — what he says shall be law.' This 
was the universal opinion expressed by all classes in 
Monterey. The poor almost worshipped him ; the 



HIS ADMINISTRATION AS JUDGE. 397 

ricli knew that with him Justice had no 'itching 
palm ;' he was incorruptible. In a word, he was 
the most popular Justice that was ever known in 
Monterey, especially with the poor ; and in all cases, 
so far as I knew or heard, were his decisions entirely 
acquiesced in." 

A lieutenant also, in the U. S, Navy, who was in- 
timately associated with Mr. Colton in California, 
testifies in regard to his administration at Monterey, 
that " he was a most popular and impartial dispensator 
of justice. The laws were never administered at less 
expense to the State, than under his Judgeship. Tlie 
prisoners were hired out to service for one and two 
dollars a day, and the jailer or guard was himself a 
released prisoner, but most faithful to his trust. The 
punishment of confinement in the calaboose was justly 
dreaded by all offenders. Imprisonment was nothing, 
but the myriad of fleas encountered in the cells was 
a torment of no ordinary infliction. 

" The untiring exertions of Mr. Colton for the ad- 
vancement and prosperity of Monterey have never 
been made public at home, neither appreciated in 
California, as would have been the case but for the dis- 
covery of the Gold Mines, which absorbed the thoughts 
and interest of every man in the country. Yet the 
erection of the substantial edifice for Public Schools 
and Town Hall, will be an enduring monument to his 
worth and memory. The building was constructed 
entirely by the individual exertions of Mr. Colton. 



898 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

"In all the usual extensive acquaintance incident to 
naval life, it has never been nij lot to associate with 
a gentleman possessing more noble traits of character 
than Mr. Colton : a good Christian, though not for- 
ward in thrusting his views upon his associates un- 
asked, but ever ready and willing to advise and sym- 
pathize with those who desired to confide in him. 
As a companion, few were more entertaining and 
instructive. He was highly esteemed by Governor 
Mason, between whom and himself there ever existed 
the most friendly intimacy. 

" From May until October, 1848, were hard times 
in Monterey. Provisions were scarce and difficult to 
obtain, and the want of domestics rendered it often 
necessary for the Governor and Alcalde to assist in 
preparing the food for the table. Though an occupa- 
tion so foreign to his usual habits, he was ever will- 
ing to lend a hand. His own sleeping apartment was 
Buch as the poorest laborer would not envy — a dark 
room, no window, not six feet wide, and almost as bad 
as the calaboose itself, from the thousands of fleas 
there congregated. 

" To the poor emigrant Mr. Colton was ever kind 
and generous in contributing to his wants and little 
comforts in a strange land ; and I can only add, that 
I have ever found him a true friend, and most ju- 
dicious adviser, whose loss I truly lament." 

Mr. Colton's letters from Monterey reveal the 
warm and large heart of the afiectionate husband 



JUDGE OF THE COURT OF ADMIRALTY. 390 

and father, ever yearning towards the beloved at 
home. He thus writes to his wife in April 1847 : 

I am the most happy when you and our dear boy are most 
warmly in my mind, and nothing brings you to me like the pen, 
or one of those morning dreams which float around the thin 
verge of slumber. I picked you a bouquet the other day all of 
sweet wild-flowers, and put it in a glass of water — it is still fresh — 
what would I give could I put it in your hand, or twine some of 
its beautiful flowers in your soft hair ! You must make Walter 
love flowers, and teach him all the little hymns about them. I 
wish I could catch one glance of the little fellow's face : I would 
consent to stay out here six months longer for that single look, 
and one kiss from you. Since I wrote you last the Governor-gen- 
eral has honored me with the appointment of Judge of the Court 
of Admiralty. You don't know, I suppose, what this court is, so I 
will explain it : when a vessel of any kind is captured by our men- 
of-war, she is considered a prize. But before she becomes really 
so, it is necessary that she should be tried and condemned ; if it 
is found that she belongs to individuals of a neutral nation that 
have not been trading with the enemy, she is liberated ; but if 
she belongs to the enemy or those who reside among them, 
she is condemned. Now, to decide this question is my office ; 
there is an appeal from my decision to that of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, if the owners choose. I have just 
condemned the schooner William and her cargo : they are both 
worth about twenty thousand dollars. It is an office of too 
much responsibility for one man ; but there is some consolation 
in knowing that if I err I shall be set right by another tribunal. 
This does not interfere with my duties as Alcalde ; these go on 
as before. I owe this Admiralty appointment to the good opin- 
ion, I should have said, the partiality, of Commodore Biddle and 
General Kearny. 



400 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

Again, in May of the same year, he playfully ac- 
knowledges the receipt of his son's miniature, a boy 
born after his father's departure for the Pacific : 

I had never supposed yours could seem dearer to me than it 
had ; yet by the side of Walter it took an additional charm. It 
was the mother and her beautiful boy — and both my own ! I 
was too happy in gazing at them ; my eyes filled with tears ; I 
read your letters through twice before going to bed; but I could 
not sleep — my thoughts were too full of you, and Walter, and 
home. I thought I could not stay out here any longer, and yet, 
dear Lilly, it would not be honorable in me to leave just yet ; I 
must wait a few months, till peace is declared with Mexico, or 
the Congress leaves for home. 

The ship of the line Columbus is still here, and Commodore 
Biddle commands the Pacific Squadron. I am on the best terms 
with him and with Commodore Stockton, and, indeed, all the 
officers. I have never had a difficulty with any of them ; I believe 
I have their esteem, and am happy in so thinking. I know, too, 
that I have the respect of the people here; they have bestowed 
on me every token of confidence and regard ; not an act of mine 
has been called in question ; and when it was reported that I was 
to leave them, they met, passed resolutions, and sent a communi- 
cation to Commodore Biddle, requesting that I might not leave 
them. They offer to put up a house and give it to you, if you 
will come out and live here. I tell them you have a little boy 
and two aunts, and cannot leave either one of the three ; — then 
they say. Bring them all out. So, to satisfy them, I tell them I 
must go home and talk with you all about coming out : but well 
I know the result of our deliberations will be to remain in Chest- 
nut-street. There I hope to spend my days with you, and Wal- 
ter, and our aunts ; and I picture to myself much happiness. 
Will it not be sweet to live there together once more, — sweeter, 



SKETCH OF A CALIFORNIA PLANTER. 401 

Lilly, for the separation 1 I won't shut you out of my study any 
more ; you shall live in there with me, and teach Walter his 
A B C's ; I expect you will even begin before I get back. 

Sketches are occasionally found in Mr. Colton's 
private letters similar to those so graphically told in 
the pages of " Three Years in California." The fol- 
lowing, however, is unique and original, in a letter 
to his wife, of June, 1847 : 

I will now give you some idea of a planter's establishment in 
California. A difference of opinion having arisen between two 
planters, whose lands adjoined, about the boundary line, I was 
called upon, as chief magistrate of the jurisdiction, to go and set- 
tle the aflfair : I said I would be ready on the following Mon- 
day. On that day, about noon, a gentleman called with his ser- 
vant, who was also mounted and leading two horses. One was 
white, a splendid animal, with broad chest, slender legs, round 
shoulders, long flowing tail and mane, an eye full of fire, and 
champing at the bit. The gentleman told me he was intended 
for me ; I forthwith mounted him, and my secretary took the 
other. Four miles took us over the mountain ridge which en- 
circles Monterey. Descending this, we came upon a beautiful 
plain of fifteen miles, with a broad stream running through the 
middle. We galloped over it, and entered a wild romantic ra- 
vine extending fifteen miles more, and then emerged upon an- 
other rich plain, which, with the one we had first passed, was 
covered with immense herds of cattle. 

Here we found another mountain stream, and, breaking from 
the forest which overhung it, discovered, on the brow of an ele- 
vation which swelled up from the bosom of the vast and verdant 
plain, a large mansion, whose white portico glittered in the sun. 
Here we brought up, after a gallop of fifty miles, in which wo 



4:02 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

had not once alighted, and which we had passed over in about 
four hours. Such are California horses ! On alighting, I felt 
the ride most in my legs, and a young lady said to me in Span- 
ish, Sefior Alcalde, I will run a foot-race with you to-morrow 
morning. Refreshments were immediately ordered, and I then 
took a siesta. 

As twilight deepened, all the old mansion was lighted up — 
every room had a light in it, and the Indians kindled a bonfire 
outside. The mansion has a main building and two wings, with 
an intervening portico : the great parlor is in the centre. Here 
two ladies amused us with their guitars : they were sisters — one 
married, the other single : — the married one about twenty ; the 
single one about eighteen. The evening passed away in music 
and chat ; at ten o'clock came supper, a meal fit for a king, but 
this is always the grand meal in California. My bed-room was 
in the wing of the building ; I found it filled with roses, and, 
what is surprising, not a flea in the bed. 

In the morning I mounted the white horse again, and rode, 
with about twenty gentlemen, over the plantation, surveying the 
disputed line, comparing it with maps and titles, and taking testi- 
mony. We were some six hours on horseback, and the follow- 
ing day as many more. The two ladies of whom I have spoken 
are daughters of the old Don : their mother, the Donna, though 
aged, is still lively : they made me tell them all about you and 
Walter. The single lady said I must bring you out here, and 
she would give you the horse I rode, (he was hers, it seems ;) 
the married one said she would give you forty cows ; the Donna 
said she would give you a hundred sheep ; the old Don said he 
would give you a thousand acres of land for Walter ! I told 
them I would pen you their proposal, but that you loved your 
home, and I hoped soon to be there. The farm of the Don lies 
fifteen miles square, in the richest land of California. He has 
only eight thousand head of cattle, a thousand horses, and four 
thousand sheep ! I was treated with the most kind and respect- 

5* 



POWERS AND DUTIES OF THE PREFECT. 403 



ful attention, and on the fourth day returned, and sent the white 
horse back, with a rose to its owner. Such is a specimen of a 
California planter. But give me, before all, my Lilly and my 
Walter : the humblest hut with them is better than the world 
without. 

Later in the same montli, we find the following, 
which reveals not less the humanity of the man and 
the wisdom of the magistrate, than the easy bearing 
of his honors : 

The Civil Government of California has been reorganized on 
its ancient basis. It has three grand departments — the Northern, 
the Middle, and the Southern. I am created Prefect of the Mid- 
dle Department; this is the highest civil office in it, and the high- 
est Spanish dignity to which I expect to arrive before I leave 
here and fly back to you. No post of honor or power would, in 
itself, keep me here a moment. I am chained from a sense of 
duty ; and when this duty has been performed, the chain dis- 
solves, and I am free. I know that in doing this I am acting 
just as you would have me. You want me to come back at 
once, but still you want me to do my duty here. I have now, 
in my capacity as Prefect, five cases of homicide on hand, all 
waiting for trial ; but I don't intend to hang any of them, — this 
is the poorest use to which you can put a human being : — I shall 
sentence them to the public works, with ball and chain, for a 
long term of years. In the United States one or two of them 
would be hung. 

I am now building a prison, with work-houses attached ; I am 
also building a splendid academy and town-hall, all of native 
rock. The academy will be the finest building in California. 
Have I not my hands full? But every thing goes on with 
energy. They have a name here for every thing, and they call 



404 MEMOm OF WALTER COLTON. 

your Walter the main-spring : I don't care what they call me, so 
that the machinery moves with harmony and effect. Monterey 
is growing very fast : some new building starts almost every 
day. The scenery around is unsurpassed in magnificent beauty : 
the thunder of the waves, as they roll and break around the bay, 
is echoed back by a hundred forest-feathered steeps ; while Mon- 
terey lies cradled between in soft sunshine and shade. 

I hope soon to be with you — with little Walter in my arms. 
How dear to me is that child ! He is the star that lights my 
horizon, and throws its tender rays on my hearth and home. 
Once more, dear Lilly, adieu ! 

Your ever constant and devoted husband, 

Walter Colton. 

The realization of these fond hopes of domestic en- 
joyment was 3^et longer deferred by the stern neces- 
sities of public duty. More than seven months later, 
Mr. Colton was still at his post in Monterey, faith- 
fully fulfilling the round of his arduous duties, but 
yearning more than ever for the delights of home. 
A letter, dated the 28th of January, 1848, reveals 
the heart both of the hero and husband : 

The Government Dispatch over land, by the way of Santa Fe, 
leaves to-morrow or next day for Washington, and I shall not 
let it go without a good long letter to you. You merit a dozen 
letters for your heroic conduct in our separation : you bear up 
against it with a heart and resolution which honor you much. 
I am proud to have one who has so much force of character for 
my wife ; forty others whom I know would have given out in 
despondency ; but you hold on and hold out. May Heaven 
bless you for it, and may I ever love you the more tenderly. In- 
stil the same fortitude into our noble boy, train him to self-de- 



COERESPONDENCE FROM MONTEREY. 405 

nial, and inspire him with good and generous purposes ; teach 
him that he lives beneath a care that hears the cry of the raven, 
and marks the fall of the sparrow ; and that every prayer his in- 
fant tongue may syllable goes straight to Heaven. Many and 
many a time have I thought what he might be, what bent his 
genius might take. I have figured his success in this or that 
profession, and my fancy has almost made him a poet ; and yet 
I don't want him to be that, unless he shall be able to string a 
lyre of surpassing sweetness and power. Above all, I hope he 
will be good, devoted to truth, virtue, and religion, when you and 
I have passed into the spirit-land. 

How I long to be on my way to you ! and yet I ought not to 
murmur ; for the country is at war, and every one in the public 
service should be prepared to do his duty. But I have been so 
long from you, and have never yet seen my dear boy, — is it a 
wonder that I am anxious to get back, that I think of it by day 
and dream of it by night 1 As yet I am intensely active here : 
I am up with the sun, and have business crowding on me till 
night ; this makes time less heavy than it would otherwise be ; 
and but for this I should indeed be most unhappy. I intend to 
go through it heroically to the last. I know you would wish me 
to do this, and not to spoil or maim what I have done, by falter- 
ing at the close. You had this sentiment in one of your letters, 
and I was proud of it, and proud of you for having penned it ; 
but I am resolved, come what may, never to leave you again. 

There is no place so dear to me here as the solitary wood, 
where I can throw myself into some silent recess, where I can 
think unmolested of you and the young being expanding into 
life and intelligence at your side. It is now mid-vdnter here, 
and yet all the flowers are out, and the birds are out and war- 
bling, as if it were but May : it is here one perpetual spring. 
Monterey is overhung with a forest whose leaves never fall ; — 
it is the evergreen oak and the verdant pine mingling their rapt 
and soul-like sounds with the music of the wave as it dies along 



406 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

the bay. Such hills, such verdure, such cliffs, such nodding for- 
ests with leaping torrents and murmuring waves, are found on 
no shore where your light footstep hath passed ; and yet how 
gladly would I turn my eyes from them forever to fly back to 
you and my own sweet child, and be there, as I am here, 
Your devoted husband, 

Walter Colton. 



Monterey, May 21st, 1848. 
My Dearest Lilly, 

You will want to know something of our quicksilver 
mine : we have discovered one of the arms of the vein, but not 
as yet the vein itself We are now excavating for that, and 
have strong hopes of success. Forbes' mine, close to ours, 
yields three hundred dollars per day. We have already discov- 
ered on our land a silver mine which is pretty rich, but we have 
no machinery for working it, and it requires a heavy capital. A 
few potash kettles will do for a quicksilver mine, and the profits 
are ten times as great ; so we go for that. If we strike the main 
vein, I am going to call it the Cornelia Mine ; but don't be too 
confident of having your name perpetuated here in that form ; 
for nothing is so uncertain as mining. When we have seemingly 
reached the golden chest, it may be somewhere else. The rich- 
est vein I ever found was in you, and with that I ought to be 
content, and I am contented. I could be happy with you in a 
log-cabin with only a hoe-cake at the fire. 

I went out yesterday to a Monterey pic-nic : there were some 
sixty ladies and gentlemen present. The place selected was by 
the sea-side, under large embowering trees. All the ladies rode 
to the ground — some three miles distant — on horseback, and a 
more frolicksome group never got together. All the ground 
here is covered with wild-flowers ; of these the ladies wore cor- 
onals, and every gentleman, save myself, was obliged to wear 



A CALIFOEIHA PIC-KIC. 407 

one; — they excused me because I was Alcalde, but they required 
me to put it on the head of some lady, and I placed it on one who 
was about eighty years of age. The ladies set the table — which 
was an immense table-cloth spread on the grass. On this was 
piled every kind of meat and game — from the ox down to the 
humming-bird — and all sorts of cakes and sweetmeats. The 
only drink was lemonade, coffee, and a light California wine, a 
gallon of which would not intoxicate. 

In the centre of the spot selected was a level plot of ground, 
from which the grass had been cut. Around this and under the 
trees the wiiole company was now grouped, when out came the 
guitars, violins, and harps, and all were ready for a dance. The 
first person who took the turf was the old lady whom I crowned 
— her partner was a young lad ; then out stepped an old man 
some eighty years or so, and he took a beautiful young girl ; 
till the company was full, and then they struck off into a coun- 
try dance : but they soon got to waltzing, and then came the 
polka. My old lady was the most sprightly and graceful of 
them all. 

When the dancing paused, they struck up a song, in which 
all joined the chorus, that made the old woods ring. Engles 
were perched on the pines around, and sea-birds were wheeling 
through the spray as it dashed up in foaming thunder from the 
rocks ; while far away stretched the broad Pacific Ocean. Was 
not this grand ? How I wanted you here ! I thought of you a 
thousand times during the day, and how Walter would have 
pulled the flowers out of the ladies' coronals. It is said no ladies 
in the world equal the Californians in the dance ; it is as much 
their element as water is that of a fish. I have seen little chil- 
dren only four years of age dance the polka and go through the 
most complicated figures without an error. 

The party broke up a little before sunset, and we all returned 
to Monterey. I never saw so much happiness and wild life at 
a pic-nic before. Though often invited, this is only the second 



4:08 MEMOIR OF WAI.TEE COLTON. 

one that I have attended. The more happy I see people, the 
more I think of you, and how sad you are in waiting for me ; 
but keep in good courage only a little while longer, and I am 
with you. 

A long year of anxiety was yet to roll between 
parties bound to each other so tenderly ere the con- 
summation of their hopes in the safe return of the 
fond husband and father. It was filled up with du- 
ties well performed and days well spent, on the one 
side ; and on the other the absence was borne as be- 
came one who had learned to sacrifice private feel- 
ings to public duty. 



WISDOM OF HIS ADMINISTRATION. 409 



CHAPTER V. 

RETURN FROM THE PACIFIC, ENGAGEMENTS WITH PUBLISH- 
ERS, LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH. 

The household band was fondly thine, and from the raging Main, 
How peacefully came sweet repose at home, dear home, again ! 

The fame of Mr. Colton's public administration in 
California has become the property of the world. A 
sketch in the International Magazine very justly says 
of him, that " the difficult duties and large responsi- 
bilities of his office, demanding the most imtiring 
industry, zeal, and fortitude, were discharged with 
eminent faithfulness and ability ; so that he won as 
much the regard of the conquered inhabitants of the 
country, as the respect of hie more immediate asso- 
ciates. In addition to the ordinary duties of his 
place, Mr. Colton established the first newspaper 
printed in California, The Californian^ now pub- 
lished in San Francisco, under the title of the Alta 
Californian. He built the first school-house in Califor- 
nia, and also a large hall for public meetings — said 
to be the finest building in the State — which the citi- 
zens called ' Colton Hall,' in honor of his public spirit 
and enterprise. 

" It was during his administration of afiairs at 
18 



410 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

Monterey, that the discovery of gold in the Sacra- 
mento valley was first made, (in May, 1848 ;) and, 
considering the vast importance which this discovery 
has since assumed, it is not uninteresting to state 
that the honor of first making it publicly known in 
the Atlantic States, whether by accident or other- 
wise, belongs properly to him. It was first an- 
nounced in a letter bearing his initials, which ap- 
peared in the Philadelphia I^orth American, and the 
next day, in a letter also written by him, in the E^ew 
York Journal of Commerce." 

Mr. Colton returned to his family by way of Pan- 
ama and Chagres with both honor and emolument, 
as soon as public duty would allow, early in the sum- 
mer of 1849. His assiduous labors had manifestly 
impaired his strength, and ploughed his face with 
furrows beyond his years. His friends remarked 
that he was care-worn, less buoyant, more reserved, 
and that he less frequently indulged his constitu- 
tional wit and humor. 

Those who knew him best thought, that while his 
natural force was unabated, the tone of his mind was 
more subdued, and there was an increase of spiritual- 
ity and of other traits becoming a Christian minister. 
He playfully says of Washington, in a letter to his 
brother, of July 11th, 1849 : " I found Washington 
full of ofiice-seekers, and became such a singular cu- 
riosity from not being one myself, that they talked 
of putting me into a cage for exhibition. The poor 



SICKNESS AT WASHINGTON. 411 



General wishes that he was fighting once again his 
Buena Yista battle : ' a little more grape, Colonel 
Bragg ' miglit then drive ofi* his enemies. But all 
the grape in Christendom would not relieve him of 
his office-seeking friends." 

After visiting his venerable father in Yermont, 
then just eighty-five years of age, he returned to 
Philadelphia and New York, and there gave himself 
in earnest to the publication of " Deck and Port," 
and "Three Years in California." A letter to his 
brother Aaron in March, 1850, from Philadelphia, 
says : 

I was at Washington about twelve weeks of the last winter — 
part of the time sick— the eifect of my California residence, or 
change of climate. My object was, the origination of a Bill in 
Congress for payment for my extra services in California. But 
nothing will be done till this slave question is disposed of. The 
Disunion Capital is at a discount, and is fast becoming what 
brokers call a foncy stock. I have corrected my last proof of 
"Deck and Port;" it will be out in a few days. My "Three 
Years in California" will follow soon. Gardiner [another 
brother] writes me from California, that he has not received a 
single letter of mine. What a miserable mail! Only fit to 
carry an order to a high sheriff for the execution of a prisoner 
entitled to a reprieve ! 

In the month of May this year, during the reli- 
gious anniversary week at Kew York, Mr. Colton 
delivered a speech that was much admired, before 
the American Seamen's Friend Society. A portion 
of the ensuing summer was spent in travelling and 



412 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

on a visit to his native region in Yermont, without, 
however, any essential benefit to his health. His 
last letter to his brother Aaron is dated E^ovember 
28th, 1850, and gives the particulars of the illness 
with which he finally died, after a confinement of 
five months : 

I do not wonder that you marvel at my silence ; but a few 
words will explain. I went to Washington a few days after you 
and E. left here : I was there attacked with a violent case of in- 
flammation of the liver. It seemed to strike me suddenly as 
a thunderbolt ; threw me on my back, where I lay about ten 
days, at which time Congress adjourned. Under the care of a 
friend I then attempted to reach home ; but this brought on a 
relapse, and I came very near dying. My physician stuck to me 
night and day. Such were the extreme tortures which I suf- 
fered, they wrenched the water copiously from my eyes — and all 
this with the utter inability to turn an inch in my bed or lift a 
hand. 

These sufferings, or rather the cause of them, yielded slowly 
to medicine, and in some four weeks I was able to ride out in a 
close carriage : but very soon, owing, I suppose, to the disease 
of the liver, I was attacked with the dysentery. I now walk out 
every day when the weather is fair : the liver is still sore, but 
no abscess is formed, and the soreness is gradually subsiding. 
Next week, if I continue to improve, I am going into a riding- 
school under cover, to ride an hour every day. This is the great 
physical cure for the liver complaint. It has been coming upon 
me ever since I returned from California. I live mostly on oat- 
meal, mush, and cream. I have had no nurse but my Cornelia 
she has been with me night and day. 

Your affectionate brother, 

Walter Colton. 



STATE OF MIND IN HIS ILLNESS. 413 

In health and sickness the subject of this memoir 
had ever practically in mind, especially the last two 
years of his life, the good "Advice for every Season" 
of old Thomas Tusser : 

In health, to be stirring shall profit thee best ; 
In sickness, hate trouble ; seek quiet and rest : 
Remember thy soul ; let no fancy prevail ; 
Make ready to Godward ; let faith never quail ; 
The sooner thyself thou submittest to God, 
The sooner he ceaseth to scourge with his rod. 

Most of the time of his last illness Mr. Colton was 
very sick ; but he was found patient, even cheerful, 
and was never but once heard to complain, and then 
only in the expressive monosyllables, " I feel bad." 
He desired to live, but was submissive to the will of 
God. Once he said " he would like to recover, if it 
might please God — he wanted to preach one more 
sermon — it should be on the uncertainty of sick-bed 
repentance." 

Until the day before his death, a strong hope was 
felt by himself and by the beloved friends who 
watched him, that he would yet get well. A short 
time before expiring, he was heard to say, " Dear 
Jesus, dear Jesus, my faith clings to thee ;" and then 
he repeated portions of the hymn beginning, " I 
would not live alway, I ask not to stay." 

When his powers of speech were almost gone, as 
if his mind yearned towards his aged father in Yer- 



414: MEMOm OF WALTER COLTON. 

mont, he said distinctly three times, " My dear fa- 
ther." His spiritual comforter and friend was Rev. 
Albert Barnes, on whose ministry he had been in the 
habit of attending in Philadelphia. Their inter- 
views were frequent during this illness, and for more 
than an hour previous to his death Mr. Barnes was 
with him, whispering passages of hope and consola- 
tion into his ear, and commending his departing 
spirit to the Saviour. 

All along in his confinement he had been examin- 
ing the foundations of his hope with great care and 
thoughtfulness, and the result was satisfactory to his 
own mind, and he told his spiritual adviser, " that 
Christ had never appeared so precious to him as he 
had during this sickness — he was the sheet-anchor of 
his soul." The nearer he came to the river of death, 
the stronger became his faith in the atoning Saviour. 
Not long before he breathed his last, he was heard to 
say, in the words of Job, " I know that my Re- 
deemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter 
day upon the earth ; and though, after my skin, 
worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see 
God." 

When made aware that his end was very near, al- 
though he had had no expectation of dying so soon, 
nor, indeed, any prevailing belief that this was to be 
his last sickness, he evinced that calmness and resig- 
nation which the Christian hope alone can warrant. 

He expired at two o'clock on the afternoon of the 



FUNERAL SERVICES AND OBITUARY. 415 

twenty-second of January, 1851, at peace, it is be- 
lieved, with God and with all mankind. His funeral 
was attended with Naval honors by a large assembly 
of United States Officers, Marines, Seamen, and other 
sympathizing friends, on the twenty-fifth. Eev. Mr. 
Barnes officiated, and addressed to the mourners, 
" Thoughts suggested by the death-bed of a Chris- 
tian;" testifying that while he was by the bedside 
of the deceased, he had felt that he was in the pres- 
ence of a true Christian, who was leaving this world 
for one more glorious ; and expatiating upon the val- 
ue of the Christian hope, till it was the aspiration of 
all present, Let me die the death of the righteous, 
and let my last end be like his. 

The day after his decease there appeared in the 
columns of the ]N"orth American the following obit- 
uary : — " It is our painful duty this morning to record 
the death of the Eev. Walter Colton, of the United 
States Navy, who expired at two o'clock yesterday 
afternoon, at his residence in this city. Mr. Colton 
was, in 1841 and '42, connected with the old North 
American as its principal editor ; and we have, there- 
fore, to lament the loss of one having claims upon us 
as a predecessor, as well as those stronger claims 
which attach to us in common with all his acquaint- 
ances and friends. He was a man of much talent 
and great worth, which he exhibited in various sta- 
tions, private and public. His professional career as 
a chaplain in the Navy endeared him to his brother 



416 MEMOIK OF WALTER COLTON. 

officers, and afforded him an opportunity of useful- 
ness wliicli he was careful to improve. 

" Called, by an exigency of war, from this peaceful 
position to the responsible post of Alcalde, or chief 
civil Magistrate, of Monterey, in California, he dis- 
played administrative abilities of a high order, and 
performed his several functions of judge and gov- 
ernor with an energy, fidelity, and tact which won 
for him the regard of a conquered people, and de- 
served the approbation of his country. His late vol- 
ume on California, describing, in a genial spirit, his 
residence, labors, and travels in that land of gold, — 
and his ' Ship and Shore,' and other literary publi- 
cations — all evincing talent and a peculiar gay and 
blithesome humor, with a certain satirical turn — will 
long give him an additional claim upon public recol- 
lection. The higher honor belongs to him of having 
been a faithful officer, a good citizen, a kind-hearted 
man, and a devoted, unostentatious Christian." 

In view of his peaceful death as a Christian, in full 
hope of the resurrection of the just, but at a time 
when his longer life as a husband, father, friend, and 
citizen was so much to be desired, for their sakes and 
his own, it were suitable to make his epitaph from 
some of those unique verses of Henry Yaughan — 

Dear, beauteous Death, the jewel of the Just ! 

Shining nowhere hut in the dark, 
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust, 

Could man outlook that mark ! 



EPITAPH FROM HENRY VAUGHAN. 417 

He that hath found some fledged bh'd's-nest may know, 

At first sight, if the bird be flown ; 
But what fair field or grove he sings in now, 

That is to him unknown. 

And yet, as angels, in some brighter dreams, 

Call to the soul when man doth sleep, 
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes, 

And into glory peep. 

O Father of eternal life and all 

Created glories under thee ! 
Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall 

Into true liberty! 

18* 



418 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 



CHAPTER VI. 

AN EPITOME OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER HEREIN DISPLAYED. 

It is not growing like a tree 

In bulke, doth make man better be ; 

Or standing long an oake, three hundred yeare, 

To fall a logge at last, dry, bald, and seare ; 

A lillie of a day, 

Is fairer farre in May ; 

Although it fall and die that night, 

It was the plant and flowre of light. 

In small proportions we just beauties see , 

And in short measures life may perfect be. 

Ben Jonson's Good Life the Long Life. 

The writer of these memorials never having had 
the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with the 
subject of them, has been obliged to rely much upon 
the judgments of those who knew him intimately, in 
making out a synopsis of his' traits of character. The 
testimony of friends is herein compared with, and 
corrected by, the glimpses and views of character 
obtained through a careful perusal of his papers, 
and the items of his personal history in private and 
public. 

The prescribed limits of this volume, already ex- 
ceeded, forbid any elaborate criticism upon the au- 



INSTRUCTIVE TRAITS OF CHARACTER, 411) 

thor's writings, or any thing more than a brief epit- 
ome of the man in his public career, as Chaplain, 
Editor, Author, and Judge, and on the field of pri- 
vate life. Four things are especially to be remarked 
in him for the instruction of others, as having 
stamped his character, and as having mainly secured 
his success in life. His benevolence and good-hu- 
mor — his conversational power in society — his apt- 
ness to make and keep friends — his tact and ready 
wit in dealing with men. 

I. Benevolence and good-htjmor. Walter Colton 
had a kind, cheerful, and generous heart, brimming 
with good feeling towards his associates and all man- 
kind. An intimate friend says of him for substance, 
that he was liberal to a proverb in his use of money. 
Money, what he had of it, went from him like water 
from a fountain. He persuaded one of his brothers 
to prepare for the Christian ministry, and generously 
aided him through the entire course. He used to 
say to him, " Call on me whenever you are in want 
of funds ; you know I would share with you my last 
penny ; if you are in want and I have two coppers, 
you shall have one of them ; my purse-strings are as 
free to your fingers as to mine." He sent hundreds 
of dollars to that brother, asking for no pecuniary 
return, not permitting the keeping of even a minute 
of the sums. 

To his friends he was constantly sending gifts. 
He aided from time to time many a young man in 



420 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

his studies for the ministry. He was a true friend 
of such ministers as he found struggling on with an 
inadequate salary. "I have known him (says a 
brother) more than once to preach for a needy min- 
ister on the Sabbath, and on leaving the place to 
send him a very generous remembrance ; a sum not 
much, if at all, less than the largest subscription 
among that people." He was at heart a sailor ; often 
spoke of the generosity of sailors, and what he thus 
commended he exemplified. It was not in him to 
turn away from a child of want. He obeyed the first 
impulse, and " shelled out," as he expressed it. He 
did not always give judiciously, but give he would, 
like a true tar ; he felt so, and did not stop to make 
inquiries. 

He would rather have been cheated ten times by 
fictitious cases of distress, though the draft upon his 
purse were ever so heavy, than refuse a single worthy 
application, where his assistance was really needed. 
True gallantry of manner and of feeling marked his 
character, which was never deficient in spontaneous 
and noble impulses, but rather in the power of re- 
straint from prudential considerations. 

In the twenty-five years between his graduation at 
Andover and his going to California, he laid up in 
store but very little for himself, though nearly all the 
while he was in the receipt of a regular salary. He 
used his resources too freely to accumulate. For 
many years he was thought to be not duly careful of 



SELF-CO]VIMAND AND PHILOSOPHY. 421 

his income. "What he wanted — what conld minister 
to his comfort or improvement — he had, if he conld 
get it. He never stopped to deliberate long and 
carefully on such a question as, Can I get along 
without this or that thing? He never traced out 
definitely the line between necessity and convenience, 
or between comfort and luxury. " Have the best 
gun for shot in the country put in complete order, 
never mind the expense ; I would not miss a sqnirrel 
for ten dollars, when I once fire." This was char- 
acteristic of the man, and in this he was not, it will 
be admitted, a safe model for general imitation. 

Mr. Colton would never fret himself in any wise. 
Earely, if ever, was he seen in a flutter of excite- 
ment. Though constitutionally sanguine and nervous, 
he had a wonderful self-control. A man in a flutter 
was to him a ludicrous spectacle. He used to say, 
" Never run after your hat in the wind ; let it fly ^ but 
do you walk deliberately towards it." He would 
liken the fluttering to " an old hen with one chicken, 
when a hawk is nigh." He maintained that it be- 
came a man to have some philosophy about him. 
Thwarted in his first choice, he therefore knew how 
to put np with the next best thing. If the boat or 
train of cars happened to start five minutes too soon 
for him, he would let it go without fuming, and 
quietly wait for the next conveyance. 

K his trunks had been stolen, (as they once were 
in Spain,) he appointed himself a Committee of 



422 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

Ways and Means, and filled that honorable oflSce 
with becoming dignity. The mishap should not 
cheat him out of an hour's sleep, or destroy his relish 
for a Spanish omelet and buccaronis ; he would not 
be chargeable with such a folly. In travelling, he 
always took things so easily that a friend testifies, 
"I have travelled hundreds of miles with him in 
every sort of craft, and have no recollection of having 
ever seen him in a pet or fiurry from mischances in 
the way." 

In this connection it is to be observed also, that 
he was remarkable for his regard to the feelings of 
others. He would let the self-complacent Bombastes 
or fault-finder utter his nonsense, and empty his con- 
ceit or gall, and have the comfort of it. To utter- 
ances for which he had not the slightest faith, but 
rather contempt, he would often make no reply, but 
leave the utterer silently to his own assertion. This 
was a rule with him in relation to points not involving 
essential principles. But if he was attacked on a 
principle, he answered instantly, and with some one 
word or sentence that was at once conclusive. The 
retort was quick as a flash, and the matter was over 
before the assailant could recover himself. 

" He would sometimes, for a purpose, wake up a 
fellow-passenger by a remark naturally enough to be 
understood as ofiensively personal. You saw the 
storm rising. But just at the right point he would 
give some dexterous turn, and all was smooth again. 



MORAL COURAGE AS A MINISTER. 423 

He knew how far he could safely venture, and having 
gone thus far, could ' bring up' all standing, and all 
good friends as before." 

In the office of reproving sin as a Christian min- 
ister, he evinced true moral courage and fidelity to 
his Master, as the following anecdote, among others, 
will show. On one occasion, when out at sea, the 
ship he was in encountered, early on a Sunday morn- 
ing, a severe squall. The commander, in issuing his 
orders, as at that time especially was too frequently 
the case, employed also exceedingly profane lan- 
guage, which Mr. Colton and all the officers and 
crew heard. At length the gale subsided, and the 
signal w^as given for all hands to assemble for public 
worship. 

Mr. Colton well knew that the commander was a 
severe and impetuous man, but he knew also that 
he himself had a duty to perform, and he was 
resolved to do it faithfully, and abide the conse- 
quences. Accordingly, after the preliminary services 
he arose, and while the commander, directly in front, 
was intently gazing on him, he announced as his text, 
" Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God 
in vain." He described the folly, the vulgarity, and 
the exceeding sinfulness of profanity ; and tlien the 
aggravated guilt of this sin, when committed by those 
occupying places of authority, where their example 
w^ould influence others; and the absurdity of any 
commander of a ship supposing that he could main- 



424 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

tain obedience and morality in a ship's crew, when 
he himself put at defiance the commands of the 
great Ruler, and placed an example of gross im- 
morality before them in his own conduct. 

Shortly after the service Mr. Colton received orders 
to appear in the commander's apartment. He went, 
expecting a severe reprimand or personal abuse. But 
no sooner had he entered the apartment than the 
commander rose, took him cordially by the hand, 
and said, " I thank you for your faithful discourse. 
I deserved it all, and by God's help I will strive to 
sin no more." Many similar instances might be 
cited of his usefulness and fidelity in his official rela- 
tions as Naval Chaplain. 

II. His conversational skill. The art of conversa- 
tion is by no means cultivated by learned and literary 
men in American society, as it is in Europe, or as its 
importance, as a vehicle of pleasure and instruction, 
demands. Americans are generally good at speech- 
making, but poor at talking. But with Mr. Colton 
the art of conversation, without ever appearing as an 
art, was innate and spontaneous. It was congenital, 
and grew with his growth. By his friends there was 
said to be an indescribable charm about him in this 
respect — a fascination that always captivated. 

He was not remarkable for his fluency, was sparing 
in his words, said his thing with emphasis and point, 
and then stopped. But he could tell a story with an 
efiect which few could equal. He always remem- 



APTNESS FOR ENTERTAINING. 425 

bered that a straight line is the shortest distance be- 
tween two points, and he w^ent direct to the conclu- 
sion, with an arch play of the fancy, and a celerity 
of movement that never tired. He had no patience 
with a bore for a story-teller, but would bring him 
up to the conclusion as quick as he could with any 
decency. 

He ever studied strength, brevity, point, and pith. 
He was incessantly conning over expressions and 
sentences to find the last analysis, wherever he might 
be, and in whatsoever engaged. While he read and 
reread those authors w^hich would help him best to 
a terse and nervous style, his numbers must be har- 
monious and strike his musical ear gratefully. 

It will be considered, says a friend, " as a fault of 
his writings, that he used too many epithets — too 
many adjectives, and especially participial adjectives. 
But you never heard any thing like this in his con- 
versation. Here every thing redundant was left out. 
He was deemed remarkable in conversation from his 
early childhood. Persons much older than himself 
were charmed at hearing him talk. Tliis became a 
snare to him, and one of the reasons with his father 
for sending him away from home to Hartford, was 
(as we have already seen) to get him away from a 
circle of adults, of which he had become the special 
attraction." 

This faculty of entertaining, and a fondness for 
society that made him always and everywhere a wel- 



426 MEMOIR OF WALTER COT.TON. 

come associate, lie retained through life. In later 
years his extensive and various travel " had left upon 
his memory a thousand delightful pictures, which 
were reflected in his conversation so distinctly, and 
with such skilful preparation of the mind, that his 
companions lived over his life with him, as often as 
he chose to summon its scenes before them." 

When in a genial mood, and the occasion and 
company would bear it, he was prone to be playful 
and jocular, full of good-natured wit, and quick at 
an impromptu or repartee. The following was an 
off-hand "delicate fling upon an epicurean fellow- 
boarder," — a literary lady, bon-vivant in her way — 
that cared more than was meet for her meals, and 
was put out of humor if called upon while enjoying 
them : 

If you should call too soon or late, 

To find Miss X. Y. in, 
Just scratch your name upon her slate, 

And hang it up again. 

But do not call when she is down 

To breakfast, tea, or dinner. 
For you'll be called an awkward clown. 

Or some poor stupid sinner 

On another occasion, at Saratoga Springs, he was 
in the company of a lady who declared her unbelief 
in the common notion, that the gas of High Rock 
Spring would destroy the life of a chicken in a few 
seconds, and herself narrowly escaped death while 



READINESS IN IMPROMPTTS. 



427 



rashly holding her head over the escaping vapor, by 
way of experiment. When the party were after- 
wards sitting at the dinner-table, Mr. Colton was 
called upon for an epitaph on the rash lady, and at 
once gave the following : 

Here lies one who went a-trickiug — 
She died by gas, as dies a chick-en I 

The lady being dissatisfied with this, requested a 
second epitaph more eulogistic and complimentary. 
Another was therefore given impromptu, at the table 
as before : 

Here lies one 

Who had the pluck 
To laugh at life's uncertain taper ; 

She died one day, 

As dies a duck, 
Killed by the High Rock's noxious vapor. 

A more elaborate impromptu was once written 
by him on reading the last proof of Mr. Kandolph's 
speech : 

Of Randolph all will promptly say, 
He does not fear the face of Clay. 
With flashing eye, and lofty mien. 
With classic tongue, and satire keen — 
With legs so thin, and hair so long, — 
With frame so weak, and mind so strong, — 
In form, in words, in voice unique. 
Who does not love to hear him speak ? 
His Arab shaft who does not feel, 
That dares provoke the dreaded steel ? 



428 MEMOm OF WALTER COLTON. 

And yet, so still, so swift it flies, 

The foe, or ere he feels it, dies. 

He rises — and the busy hum 

Is hushed : e'en beauty's self is dumb : 

And as his accents pierce the ear, 

Wit learns, and Wisdom stoops to hear. 

m. His aptness to make and keep fkiends. Mr. 
Col ton's disposition was finely molded to make him 
tlie agreeable companion and trusty friend. Frank, 
prompt, and generous almost to a fault, in all his 
impulses and acts, it was not necessary to study him 
long or watch him closely in order to find out his pe- 
culiarities, and then to be left in uncertainty whether 
you really comprehended him or not. He wore no 
mask, and put on no grimaces. He was so open and 
undisguised in word and deed, as even somewhat at 
times to afiect his standing for sobriety, with persons 
who did not know him intimately, or who were apt 
to mistake the instance for the essence, and who were 
not qualified to appreciate the movements of an hon- 
est and joyous heart, not least devout when most de- 
lighted. 

His lively sensibilities responded to every touch 
of humanity ; but while ready to weep with those 
who wept, it was more his nature to rejoice with 
those who rejoiced. For the most of his life the 
world seemed to him clad in smiles and not in sables ; 
and he was not disposed to steep its pleasant herbs 
with wormwood. His views of man and of human 



WARMTH AND WORTH AS A FRIEND. 429 

progress continued cheerful to the close of life, not- 
withstanding all he learned of the world in a wide 
and varied intercourse with humanity. 

In his dealings with men, while there was not to 
be discovered any trace of cold, sinister, cynic calcu- 
lation, he was far from being of that reckless, unre- 
flecting class who have no prudence, and can never 
learn wisdom. A clerical friend in the city of Phila- 
delphia says of him : " It had been my privilege for 
many years to enjoy the intimate acquaintance of 
Mr. Colton ; and especially so during his residence 
in this city. Kind, generous, and affectionate in his 
own nature, he became tenderly endeared to his 
many friends ; and other eyes besides those of his 
bereaved and sorrowing family have paid the tribute 
of tears to his memory. From the great intelligence, 
the chaste and lively wit, (tempered always by Chris- 
tian propriety and benevolence,) the uniform cheer- 
fulness and kindness of his nature, Mr. Colton was 
always a welcome guest and an agreeable companion. 
ISTo one could converse with him without gaining 
some new thought or useful information, which, from 
the courtesy of his manner, was communicated in 
the most agreeable way, and therefore left the most 
abiding impression." 

Few, indeed, could win the affections of men like 
the subject of this Memoir, and there was a large 
reason for it. He had those very qualities which 
first attract and then rivet friend to friend. With a 



430 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

genial warmth of heart, and stirred, as we have seen, 
by noble impulses, he loved his friends strongly, and 
never stooped to meanness or suspicion. He had 
also a quick, instinctive discernment of the proprie- 
ties of demeanor and address ; and he observed those 
proprieties in their nicest and most delicate shades — 
kind, careful, and courteous, in every thing. 

Few could so fix the attention, or so enlist the in- 
terest of persons in the casual intercourse of society, 
as Mr. Colton. The stranger always wanted to hear 
more from that little man, for there was that in his 
eye and mouth, in his tones of voice, in his emphasis, 
and pith, and gesture, that went to the heart. He 
did not win by any arts, but simply acted out him- 
self. A friend says of him that he " always was 
himself, neither less nor more. He seemed to be 
totally unconscious of his power in this respect. He 
probably was unconscious of it in the main. When 
flattered, he was not made vain, but had the sense to 
see through it. What honors he had he bore meekly. 
It were speaking within the bounds of literal truth to 
say that few men ever had more friends, or warmer 
friends. There are those who know, and whose 
throbbing hearts testify." 

Mr. Colton was also a dutiful son, and an affec- 
tionate, noble brother. He truly reverenced and 
loved his father and mother : his filial affection was 
proved through life in a thousand ways, which it 
were intruding upon the sanctity of domestic life 



INDEPENDENCE AS A MINISTER. 431 

to make public. He always held that no one of the 
family, having the power to help, should leave a 
brother or sister to suffer need ; and he was himself, 
as his life has shown, ever as good as his word. 

Mr. Colton, as a minister, was characterized by in- 
dependence and liberality, and by his charitable 
judgments of men of different creeds. He was com- 
mitted to no party : while firmly grounded himself in 
the great doctrines of New England Calvinism, he 
was always at the widest remove from bigotry. He 
could acknowledge and admire true religion wherever 
found. 

From the natural turn of his mind, and from a 
wide intercourse with men, he was remarkably exempt 
from narrow views and prejudices, and he never had 
w^hat is called a sectarian feeling. He thought, acted, 
and felt on a large scale. His knowledge, too, as 
well as his feeling, was extended and general, and 
he attached to himself men of most opposite views. 
When invited once to take a seat in the General 
Assembly, and inquired of as to w^hich school he be- 
longed, the Old or New, he answered in a moment, 
" I paddle my own canoe." 

What the Subject of this Memoir was as a Hus- 
band and Father, we have already learned, in part, 
through his letters and acts. A friend who stood by 
him on the day when she whom he most truly and 
fondly loved became his wife, has left with his biog- 
rapher this tribute, referring to that happy occasion. 



432 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

" The warm affections of his nature then found their 
chosen and most worthy object : the wish of his life 
was fulfilled. Happy were all his friends in the pure, 
delicious happiness which evidently filled his heart, 
large as were its capacities, and which beamed forth 
in every look, and uttered its spirit in every accent. 

" ]^ot half that he felt, not half that he afterwards 
fulfilled in the care, the tenderness, the love of a 
husband, was expressed in his solemn vows. And 
afterwards, when, sternly obedient to his duty, he tore 
himself even from the smiles of that chosen one, and 
went forth over rough seas to distant and sickly 
climes, distance divided not his heart nor his spirit 
from her, as his frequent letters and his tender strains 
of soul-stirring poetry sufficiently show. I^or can 
we doubt that although he is now removed to the 
happy and holy society above, the memory of those 
who were dear to him is still cherished ; and the 
period anticipated with unutterable joy when those 
who were his friends and companions on earth, shall 
be his friends and companions in heaven. What a 
blessing is such a man to his friends, daily and hourly 
bestowing benefits on all who come within the circle 
of his influence ! and what a loss does society sustain 
when such a man is taken from us !" 

lY. His tact and wit in dealing with men. Mr. 
Colton's quick insight and discernment of human 
character and motives, and his forethought in avoid- 
ing, and address in overcoming difficulties between 



THE TEEBUTE OF A CLASSMATE. 433 

man and man, were pertiaps as remarkable as any- 
other traits in his character. The future Alcalde, 
said one of his college classmates, " showed his quick 
invention and his decision in some amusing ways in 
college : on one occasion, I recollect, while he had 
charge of the chapel bell, some students had spent 
half the night in the usual trick of cutting the rope 
and nailing up the doors, so that they might not be 
called to morning prayers ; when, behold ! to his de- 
light and their dismay, within a few minutes beyond 
the usual time, the bell rang out most clear and lus- 
tily. Mr. Colton had contrived to cut through the 
obstacles and get at the rope. 

" From other instances of a similar kind it became 
pretty generally felt, that it was hardly worth while 
to attempt to get the better of Colton in any thing 
that required decision or address. He would find, 
or he would make a way. His ready wit was one of 
the most characteristic and obvious things about him. 
Always at hand, always in play when opportunity 
presented ; sportive and gay, glancing like sunbeams 
upon placid waters, venting itself in a pun, or in quick 
repartee, or in innocent raillery, but with not the 
slightest shade of malice or ill-nature to give it a 
cutting edge, it always amused and often instructed. 

" While I recollect this trait of character well, I 
do not recall a single sarcasm, or sneer, or biting 
personal reflection, that could pain the most sensi- 
tive, or excite the enmity of any of his college-mates. 

19 



434 MEMOIR OP WALTER COLTON. 

Indeed, I do not believe he had an enemy in the 
whole institution — of itself sufficient evidence of the 
character of his witticisms — and this was not from 
mere weak good-nature ; for he had strong positive 
c|[ualities, and his wit was often pointed enough ; but 
it was from an exuberant good-nature, which con- 
trolled his combative propensities, played round his 
conversation, and frequently helped his wit to turn 
into a laugh what a less amiable temper, in union 
with such ready powers of ridicule, would probably 
have converted into a quarrel. 

" Of a long roll of class-mates, an unusual propor- 
tion of whom have rendered themselves eminent in 
different departments of professional and active life, 
many have already departed. Every year dimin- 
ishes the number of the living, and enlarges the 
starred catalogue of those who are removed from all 
participation in the concerns of time and of earth. 
However diverse may have been their courses, how- 
ever wide the circle they may have filled, however 
beloved, useful, eminent, any of them may have be- 
come, and whatever memorial may remain of their 
lives or deeds, I doubt whether any will leave to 
survivors a more kindly, tender remembrance than 
Walter Colton. His was a generous nature ; and by 
his talents he achieved a position and fame which, in 
our college days, few would have predicted. 

" In the path into which Providence led him, he 
was conspicuous and useful. The varied phases of 



CONSOLATIONS TO SURVIVING FRIENDS. 435 



his active life strikingly illustrate the text, that the 
way of man is not in himself ; it is not in man that 
walketh to direct his steps. He leaves a name un- 
tarnished, so far as I have ever heard, by a mean- 
ness or a crime. The piety he early professed was, 
it is firmly believed, a growing principle. It evolved 
itself in the active duties of his sphere, and we trust 
its hopes are realized, its ends attained in the king- 
dom of our Father and Saviom- above." 

In closing this volume of relics and memorials, and 
in parting with a man in whose society we seem to 
have been tarrying so long, through the leaves of 
this book, as to have contracted for him a true 
friendship, the Editor may be allowed to refer the 
hearts that still bleed at the wounds made by his 
death, to the admirable sentiments of the late Dr. 
Waugh of London, in his letters of consolation to 
bereaved friends. 

" It is not," says he, " so much the innate worth 
and beauty of objects that give them influence, as 
the habit of thinking on them, and bringing them 
near to the mind. Now this is always in our power. 
We may walk with our departed friends, and hold 
rational and devout converse with their spirits, with- 
out the medium of body. This mental intercourse 
cannot fail to aid mightily the culture of those moral 
habits and dispositions which will fit us in due time 
for mingling in their society, and for that exalted 



436 MEMOIR OF WALTER COLTON. 

state of being and blessedness to whicb we are called. 
It is thus we bold fellowship with the Eedeemer 
himself, whom, though now we see him not, we su- 
premely love, and in whom we fully confide. 

" Were our friends as valuable as our fancy paints 
them, let us bless God that we had such a treasure 
to surrender ; and let us try to make the surrender 
without the reluctance of excessive affection. It is 
giving up a jewel which Christ claims, and which he 
will ^x in his mediatorial crown to sparkle, in the 
perfection of holiness, to all eternity. 

" In the removal of friends there is an additional 
motive to long and prepare for heaven ; and the ob- 
ligation is doubled to minister to the welfare of those 
on earth, who have not now the counsels or exam- 
ples which they once had to guide them to piety. 
The tender connections of life, when cemented by 
piety, may by death be suspended, but cannot be de- 
stroyed." 

That the aspirations of the departed father, whose 
varied life and labors we have herein traced, may be 
realized for the surviving boy Walter, and that he 
may prove a son worthy of his sire, so as nobly to 
sustain his honored name, is the earnest wish of the 
biographer. For his help in the formation of such a 
character as his father would desire, we commend 
the foregoing pages to the perusal of the lad as life 
advances, hoping especially that he will remember 
all they say upon the Worth, Dignity, and Destiny 



A GOOD HOPE OF HEAVEN. 437 



of the Soul, and the sin and danger of neglecting 
Christ; and when the son has lived his life on 
earth, beloved and useful like the father, may he 
join him in the realm of the blessed, through like 
precious faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. 



THE END. 



THE ISLAND WORLD OF THE PACIFIC: 

BEING THE PERSONAL NARRATIVE AND RESULTS OF TRAVEL THROUGH THE 

SANDWICH OR HAWAIIAN ISLANDS AND OTHER PARTS OF POLYNESIA. 

WITH ENGRAVINGS. 12M0., MUSLIN, $1.00. 

BY REV. HENRY T. C H E E V E R. 

This is a volume worthy of the age, and of the present wants of the world. We 
have perused it with unmingled pleasure and delight, and promise any one who 
■will take the trouble to open it, an amount and richness of information 'relative to 
the Polynesian world, to be obtained from no other source. It is copiously illus- 
trated, and written in a flowing style, and with the marks of keen observation, 
Christian philosophy, and a critical insight into the world's woes, wants, and bless- 
ings, stamped on every page. In it are passages and chapters of exceeding beauty 
of description. The chapter on the Albatross, that glorious bird of the sea, is 
worth the price of the volume.— Jimcricaji Spectator. 

The volume presents a mass of information with regard to the history, geography, 
and commercial and political condition of those islands, brought down to the pres- 
ent time, and digested into a compact and readable form. His book cannot fail to 
be widely read during the present excitement in regard to every thing cormected 
with the Pacific Ocean. — JVew Yoric Tribune. 

It is full of information and life, telling stories of land and sea in a way to stir 
the passion for adventure without harm to the sobriety of the reader's temper, or 
the steadfastness of his faith. We need such books always, and especially now, 
when a new age of marine adventure is awakened, and om- youth are taking with 
fresh zeal to the seas. Voyages are always captivating to the young, and happy is 
it when the story is told by a Christian or a man of taste. The book is just the 
thing for the host of boys between fourteen and twenty, the mighty generation 
now starting on the race or voyage of life. — Christian Enquirer. 

A charming book which we can read with confidence in the author's statements, 
and with unflagging interest in the fresh scenes which they bring so vividly before 
our minds. It is a most instructive book for young persons. The ocean paradises 
of which it makes report to us, will ere long be visited by summer tourists.— 
Unitarian Quarterly Examiner. 



MEMORIALS OF CAPTAIN OBADIAH CONGAR : 

FOR FIFTY YEARS MARINER AND SHIPMASTER FROM THE PORT 
OF NEW YORK. 

by the author of " the whale and his captors," and " island world 
of the pacific." 

16mo., muslin, 50 cents. 

This is a fitting monument to the memory of an old sailor, who, after having 
weathered many storms on the ocean of life, arrived safe, at an advanced age, in 
the haven of everlasting rest. There is a good deal of interesting incident in his 
life, but the most interesting circumstance is that, in spite of the peculiar tempta- 
tions to which his profession exposed him, he maintained a close and humble 
walk with God. It is proper that the example of such a man should be embalmed, 
and Mr. Cheever has done it well. — JVeio York Observer. 

The individuality described, is that of a man exposed to the varied temptations 
and distractions of a sailor's life, but still drawn heavenward by the influence of 
the spirit of God, and describing in a simple and unafiected manner the influence 
of God's mercies and chastisements in the formation of his character as a Christian. 
The tone of the book is healthy and liberal ; it appears to contain much to recom- 
mend it to the perusal of those who are looking to God as their " ever present help 
in everj' time of trouble." The author already enjoys a high reputation from his 
*' Island World of the Pacific." — Parker^s Journal. 



A. S. BARNES <fc COMPANY'S PUBLIC A.TIONS. 
Col ton's Three Years in California. 



THREE YEARS IN CALIFORNIA. 

BY REV. WALTER COLTON, U. S. N., 

LATE AliCALDK OF MONTEREY. 

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS. 



♦' A rare work this for ability, interest, information, mirth, and as the most recent and 
most authentic history of California, since it came under the American flag. It con- 
tains excellent portraits of Messrs. Sutter, Jjarkin, Fremont, Gwinn, Wright, and 
Snyder, with numerous and humorous illustrations ; a list of the members of the Con- 
vention which organized the State of California ; a chart of the ' Declaration oj 
Rights,^ with facsimiles of the signatures, &c. Nothing of interest to the public in 
the rapid growth of this new world, its towns, villages, and settlements, its gold digging, 
gold explorations, &c., escapes the notice of the author ; and the pictures he has given 
of California life and manners aie at the same time graphic, instructive, and often in 
the moat provoking degree mirthful." — National Intelligencer. 



" It is the best history of California that has appeared, and will prove as instructive 
as it is interesting and provocative of mirth." — Rochester Democrat. 



"This work is an authentic history of California, from the time it came under the 
flag of the United States down to this present, explorations, new settlements, and gold 
diggings. While the reader is instructed on every page, lie wiU laugh about a hundred 
if not a thousand times before he gets through this captivating volume, and though he 
aits alone in his chair. It is, in the first place, a book of fact; next to the remarkable 
and ludicrous peculiaiities of CaUfomia life and manners, ai-e an incessant provocation 
to make one laugh ; and the author being a poet, gives us a fine relish of that every 
now and then." — Washington Republic. 



"The anticipations of those who expected from Mr. Colton a book about California 
at once reliable and entertaining, comprehensive and concise, instructive and lively — 
in fact, just what a work of the kind ought to be, but what a majority of the luimeroua 
accounts heretofore published are not —will be abundantly realized on perusal of this 
volume. Mr. Colton, besides possessing the various qualifications of an intelligent ob- 
server—a highly-cultivated mind, stored with ample material for comparison, in the 
fruits of years spent in travel in every part of the world, and intercourse with numeroua 
peoples — enjoyed peculiar advantages for becoming acquainted with CaUfomia, in his 
long residence there ; in his exalted oflacial position, which made him the associate and 
counsellor of the highest functionaries in the province ; in a philosophical disinterested- 
ness, which, while it raised him above the scramble for treasure, enabled him 2almly 
to sui-vey the field ot action, and describe the operations of the scramblers ; and, 
finally, in an elevated personal character, which commanded the respect and won the 
confi<leuce and regard of all classes of the people." — Journal of Commerce. 



" It is thi matt instructive work on Calironiiu we have swn." — Commrrcial Jldmrtigef 



A. S. BARNES & COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS 

GoHon^s Three Years in G alifornia. 

"It ia certainly refreshing to find such a book as this one, after having vainly 
Bearched for something authentic, 'true to nature,' and at the same time readable^ 
among the thousands which have been issued from the prolific press since the dis- 
covery of 'El Dorado.' We hail it as almost as dear a treasure as would be aie dis- 
covery of a rich ' placer,' were we upon the veritable soil of California. We have 
stolen time during the past week to hastily glance over the pages of Mr. Colton'* 
book, and our opinion, before very high, because of the encomiums universaUy bestowed 
upon it by our contemporaries, has rather been increased, certainly not diminished, and 
we think a more careful perusal will well repay. Our longing upon this point baa 
been satiated, and we can safely say that we have gained more of a knowledge Oi 
California, as it was before, and as it has been since the discovery of gold in its soil." 
— Syracuse Journal. 



"Mr. Colton is one of the most agreeable of American writers. His ideas flow as it 
were spontaneously — one moment grave, then gay. One moment we feel, while 
reading his books, like weeping at some well-drawn picture, and the next, we can 
hardly keep from splitting our sides with laughter, at some brilliant, mirth-provoking 
expression." — Republican .Advocate. 



"There never was a better illustration of the saying, that 'Truth is stranger than 
fiction,' than is found in this narrative. Truly, the real is a more wonderful world than 
the ideal. When the writer of this interesting and delightful book landed at San 
Francisco, California was a dependency of the Republic of Mexico ; but when he left 
it, in all but In name, it was a State of the American Union : now it is one. Its newly 
risen, but glorious star is shining in the bright constellation where clusters the stars of 
Its sister States ; its senators and representatives are sitting with those of the other 
members of the Confederacy in the halls of the national legislature, at Washington. 
The causes that have been so busily at work in producing this series of astonishing 
changes, are all truthfully detailed in this narrative, as they occurred from day to day, 
and as they came under the keen but discriminating observation of one who had the 
best opportunity of knowing, as well as the happiest manner of relating them. Any 
thing like an analysis of a volume so filled as this is with striking incidents, crowding 
one after another in such rapid succession, is impossible. As we read on from page to 
page, we become more and more interested, as the things which it records become 
more and more important, imtil we seem to partake of the wild enthusiasm that must 
have been felt by the immediate actors in these imposing but exciting scenes of a most 
eventful drama. For once the sober dignity of history is compelled to put on the aira 
and charms of romance. This beautiful volume can be read with mingled pleasure 
and profit by all who wish to get coiTect ideas of the golden land, towards which all 
eyes are now turned." — JViagara Democrat. 



" A full account of the appearance of that curious disease, 'the gold fever,' from the 
first scattering cases up to the time when the whole population was infected, is admirably 
given, with strange and amusing illustrations of individual attacks. For the purpose of 
fully studying the disease, the worthy alcalde himself repaired to the mines, and observed 
it in all its glory. His descriptions, therefore, must be perfect, from having been made 
upon the spot. The well-known ability and position of the author, fitted him admirably 
lo observe and note passing events in a territory 'of such vast importance ; and the 
reader may turn to the journal of Mr. Colton for an accurate chronicle of events. 

"From humor, statistics, description, historical narrative, mining, agricultural and 
political information, this baik is calculated to attract every class of readt-TS."— 
W&shi^tirn Union. 



A. S. BARNES «fe COMPANY S PUBLICATIONS. 
Oolton's Deck and Port. 

DECK AND port; 

OR, 

INCIDENTS OF A CHUISE IN THE UNITED STATES PRIGATE CONGRESS 

TO CALIFORNIA: 

With Sketches of Rio Janeiro, Valparaiso, Lima, Honolulu, and San 
Francisco. By Rev. Walter Colton, U. S. N., late Alcalde of Monterey- 
Illustrated with Engravings. 1 vol. 12mo. 



"We are indebted to the publishers for one of the most delightful books we have 
received in au age. Tliough professedly commenced ' more as the whim of the hour, 
than any purpose connected with the public press,' the polished and gifted author has 
infused ao much of spirit and sentiment into the various daily 'jottings.' as to render 
the volume one series of delightful conversations. The sketches of the different citiea 
visiied ai-e beautifully executed, and printed in tints." — Phila. Saturday Courier. 

"There ai-e elements of popularity and interest enough in this handsome volume to 
make a market for a dozen. California is a magic word in these days ; and those upon 
whom it does not operate with sufficient power to tear them away from home, friends, 
and health at home, feel its influence quite enough to devour every thing that relates to 
it. This work is by fai- the most methodical, satisfactory, and graphic description of 
El Dorado, and the way thither, that has yet appeai-ed. Mr. Colton will be remem- 
bered by those who read his admirable ' Ship and Shore' as a most lively, humorous, 
and sketchy writer ; and his best qualities are brought into play in this work. The 
amount of valuable information on which his pleasant sketches are based, is veiy 
great. The value of the book is also greatly increased by the illustrations it contain*. 
There are a large number of sketches of scenes and places, drawn by Mr. Colton, 
beautifully engraved, and printed in colors, which are fine works of art, and give a 
vivid idea of the places visited. It is a work whose literary merit, attractive fonn, 
and most interesting matter, will make it highly populai-." — JV. Y, Evangelist. 

"This is unquestionably one of the most interesting books that has been issued from 
the American press the present year. VVc have never read a book that pleased us 
more. Possessing a brilliant imagination, the author has painted, in glowing colors, a 
thousand pictures of the sea, night and storm, sunshine and calm. P>ery page is full 
of glowing thoughts, sublime truths, pure morals, and beautiful aphorisms. It is a 
book that will never be out of date — it is a gem that will become brighter every day. 
We predict that this volume will run through several editions." — Pittsburg Morning 
Post. 

" This work is published in a beautiful style, and is full of highly interesting scenes 
and incidents, detailed by a master hand. It has been seldom that we have found a 
work more instructive, and at the same time so interesting as the one before us. To 
say .my thing in praise of the author, would be useless. His fame is so well settled, that 
our opinion could neither raise it higher nor detract from its merits. 

"Everything related, is clothed in the rich garniture which is rifforded by a well 
Btored and well cultivated mind, governed by high moral principle. The whole 
tenor of the work, while it aims at instructive narration, is also calculated to impress 
upon the mind pure and elevated ideas, both of men and things. 

"We have no hesitation in saying to all who want a ^oorf, wse/ii/, and interesting 
book, that they cannot do better than to secure a copy of this. It will richly repay a 
perusjil." — Massillon JVews. 

" His pen has the wand-like power of making the scenes which it describes live and 
move before the mind of the reader. We can cheerfully recommend this as a charta 
ing book, full of informatitni iuid entertainment." — Hartford C/iristian Hicretary. 



A. S. BARNES & COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 



Lady Willoughhy's Diary. 



LADY willoughby; 

OR, 

PASSAGES mm. THE DIAEY OF A WIFE AJS^D MOTHER IN THE 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 



"This interesting and excellent book purports to be a diary of a lady of royal birth 
two hundred years ago. From its being written in a style so simple, with so much o! 
pure devotional and domestic feeling, and displaying so naturaUy the unaffected, 
womanly thoughts of a daughter, wife, and mother-its modern authorship has been 
more than suspected. Be this as it may, it has been deemed by many mteUigent 
readers to have emanated from Lady Willoughby ; or, at all events, to have been the 
production of an excellent mind, and one which had undergone the disciplme of real 
experience. The original book was long hoarded up as a literary cm-iosity ; but upon 
examination, this ancient quaito, with 'ribbed paper and antique type,' was found to 
possess too much of character, feeling, and general popular interest, to be shut up in 
the cabinets of the virtuosos. It soon ran through the first edition, and the preset 
beautiful American reprint is from the second London issue."— JVerZonf an. 



« A mo^^t remarkable work, which we read, some time ago, in the original Englisri 
shape, with great delight. Its character is peculiar. Lady Willoughby is a fictitiou> 
character, personating an English lady of the seventeenth century, who, while th-- 
civil wars were faging, lived quietly apart from the scene of strife, bringing up hei 
children, and manifesting her conjugal as well as maternal affection in the 'Diai-y. 
which, had it emanated from the pen of a real Lady Willoughby of the time, could 
not have been a more beautiful, a more affecting, or a more mstructive record. - 
JVeio York Tribune. 

''The ori<nnal edition of this work, published in Loudon, was issued in quarto form, 
upon ribbed paper and antique type, and at once attracted very general attention as . 
rare literary cm-iosity. In the present edition, reprinted from the second Enghs. 
edition, the style of execution has been modernized, retaining only the capitals, italic. 
Hiid the old spelling. It is a work of high interest, in whatever light it is viewed ; and 
as a picture of domestic life during the stormy period when Cromwell and Fau-fax a.... 
other heroes of that era filled so large a space before the public, it possesses a char..-, 
which will entertain every reader. The style is quaint though simple and attractive-, 
and the book is a perfect gem in its way."— Tro?/ Budget. 

"This Diary purports to have been written in the stirring times of Charles the Fir^t 
and Oliver Cromwell, but the allusions to public events are merely incidental to tht- 
portraiture of Lady Willoughby^s doraes.ic life. Her picture of the little pains an.! 
trials which ai-e mixed up with the joys that surround the fireside is perfect, and no 
une can fail to derive benefit from its examination. In the very first chapter we are 
chai-med with her simplicity, her piety, and true womanly feehng, and learn to 
reverence the fictitious diarist as a model for the wife and mother of the mneteenth 
centm-v." — jsTewark Daily Jidvertiner. 



A. S. BARNES & COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 
Ma 71 sfield on Americ an E due ation. 

AMERICAN education: 

ITS PRINCIPLES AND ELEMENTS. 

DEDICATED TO THE TEACHERS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

BY EDWAED D. MANSFIELD, 

Author of '■'■Political G-rammar^^'' etc. 

This work is suggestive of principles, and not intended to point out a 
course of studies. Its aim is to excite attention to what should be the 
elements of an American education ; or, in other words, what are the 
ideas connected with a republican and Christian education in this period 
of rapid development. 

"The author could not have applied his pen to the production of a book upon a 
subject of more importance than the one he has chosen. We have had occasion to 
notice one or two new worlvs on education recently, which indicate that the attention 
of authors is beinc: directed toward that subject. We trust that those who occupy the 
proud position of teachers of American youth will find nmch in these works, which are 
a sort of interchange of opinion, to assist them in the discharge of their responsible duties. 

"•The author of the work before us does not point out any particular course of studitis 
to be pursued, but confines himself to the consideration of the principles which should 
govern teachers. His views upon the elements of an American education, and its 
bearings upon our institutions, are sound, and worthy the attention of those to whom 
they are particularly addressed. We commend the work to teachers." — Rochester 
Daily Advertiser, 

"We have examined it with some care, and are delighted with it. It discusses the 
whole subject of American education, and presents views at once enlarged and compre- 
hensive ; it, in fact, covers the whole ground. It is high-toned in its moral and 
religious bearing, and points out to the student tlie way in which to be a man. It 
should be in every public and private library in the country."— JacAson Patriot. 



" It is an elevated, dignified work of a philosopher, who has written a book on tho 
subject of education, which is an acquisition of great value to all classes of our 
countrymen. It caTi be read with intei-est and profit, by the old and yoimg, the 
educated and unlearned. We hail it in this era of superficial and ephemerariitera- 
ture, as the precursor of a better future. It discusses a momentous subject ; bringing 
to bear, in its examination, the deep .and labored thought of a comprehensive mind. 
We hope its sentiments may be diffused as freely and as widely throughout our land 
as the air we breathe."— J^Ta/amazoo Gazette, 



"Important and comprehensive as is the title of this work, we assure our readers it 
Ib no misnomer. A v/ide gap in the bulwark of this age and this country is greatly 
lessened by this excellent book. In the first place, the vjiews of the author on educa- 
tion, irrespective of time and place, are of the highest order, contrasting strongly with 
the groveling, time-seeking views so plausible and so popular at the present day. 
A leading purpose of the author is, as he says in the preface, ' to turn the thoughts of 
those engaged in the direction of youth to the fact, that it is the entire soul, in all its 
faculties, which needs education.' 

"The views of the author are eminently philosophical, and he does not pretend to 
enter into the details of teaching; but his is a practical philosophy, having to do with 
living, abiding truths, and does not sneer at utility, though it demands a utility that 
takes hold of the spiritual part of man, and reaches into his immortality."— -ffo/tZen'* 
Magaiin$, 



A. S. BARNES & COMPANy's PUBLICATIONS. 



Mansfield's Life of General Scott. 



MANSFIELD'S LIFE OF GENERAL SCOTT. 



THE LIFE OF GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT, 

BY EDWARD D. MANSFIELD. 

This work gives a full and faithful narrative of the important events 
with which the name and services of General Scott have been con- 
nected. It contains numerous and ample references to all the sources 
and documents from which the facts of the history are drawn. Illus- 
trated with Maps and Engravings. 12mo. 350 pages. 

From the New York Tribune. 
We have looked through it sufficiently to say with confidence that it is well 
done— a valuable addition to the best of American biographies. Mr. Mansfield 
does his work thoroughly, yet is careful not to overdo it, so that his Life is some- 
thing better than the fulsome panegyrics of which this class of works is too ge«- 
erally composed. General Scott has been connected -with some of the most 
stirring events in our national history, and the simple recital of his daring deeds 
warms the blood like wine. We commend this well printed volume to general 
perusal. 

From the N. Y. Courier and Enquirer. 
This volume may, both from its design and its execution, be classed among 
what the French appropriately call " memoirs, to serve the cause of history," 
blending, as it necessarily does, with all the attraction of biographical incidents, 
much of the leading events of the time. It is also a contribution to the fund of 
true national glory, that which is made up of the self-sacrificing, meritorious, and 
perilous services, in whatever career, of the devoted sons of the nation. 

From the U. S. Gaxette, {Philadelphia.) 
A beautiful octavo volume, by a gentleman of Cincinnati, contains the above 
welcome history. Among the many biographies of the eminent officers of the 
army, we have found that that of General Scott did not occupy its proper place ; 
but in the " authentic and unimpeachable history" of his eventful life now pre- 
sented, that want is satisfied. 

From the Cleveland (Ohio) Daily Herald. 
We are always rejoiced to see a new book about America, and oar country 
men, by an American— especially when that book relates to our history as a ns 
tion, or unrolls those stirring events in which our prominent men, both dead an- 
liv ng, have been actors. As such we hail with peculiar delight and pride the 
work now before us ; it has been written by an American hand, and dictated by 
an American heart— a heart deeply imbued with a love of his native land, it* 
institutions, and distinguished men. 



A. S. BARNES & company's PUBLICATIONS. 



History of the Mexican War. 



THE MEXICAN WAR: 

A History of its Origin, with a detailed Account of the Victories 
which terminated in the surrender of the Capital, with the Official 
Despatches of the Generals. By Edward D. Mansfield, Esq 
Illustrated with numerous Engravings. 

From the Philadelphia North American. 
Mr. Mansfield is a writer of superior merit. His style is clear, nervous, and 
impressive, and, while he does not encumber his narrative with useless ornament, 
his illustrations are singularly apt and striking. A graduate of West Point, he ia 
of course familiar with military operations ; a close and well-read student, he has 
omitted no sources of information necessary to the purposes of his work ; and a 
shrewd and investigating observer, he sees in events not alone their outward as- 
pects, but the germs which they contain of future development. Thus qualified, 
it need hardly be said that his history of the war with Mexico deserves the am- 
plest commendation. 

From the New York Tribune. 
A clear, comprehensive, and manly history of the war, is needed ; and we are 
jlad to find this desideratum supplied by Mr. Mansfield's work. 

From the New York Courier and Enquirer. 

This is really a history, and not an adventurer's pa'mphlet destined to live for 
the hour and then be forgotten. It is a volume of some 360 pages, carefully writ- 
ten, from authorities weighed and collated by an experienced writer, educated 
at West Point, and therefore imbued with a just spirit and sound views, illustra- 
ted by plans of the battles, and authenticated by the chief official despatches. 

The whole campaign on the Rio Grande, and that, unequalled in brilliancy m 
any annals, from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico, are unrolled before the eyes 
of the reader, and he follows through the spirited pages of the narrative, the dar- 
ing bands so inferior-in every thing but indomitable will and unwavering self-re- 
Uance, and military skill and arms— to the hosts that opposed them, but opposed 

We commend this book cordially to our readers. W 2 /i K Q 

From the Baptist Register, Utica. 
The military studies of the talented editor of the Cincinnati Chronicle, admi- 
rably qualified him to give a truthful history of the stirring events connected with 
the unhappy war now ragmg with a sister republic ; and though he declares m 
his preface that he felt no pleasure in tracing the causes, or in contemplating the 
progress and final consequences of the conflict, yet his graphic pages give prool 
of his ability and disposition to do justice to the important portion of our nation s 
history he has recorded. The very respectable house publishing the book, have 
done great credit to the author and his work, as well as to themselves, m th.» 
handsome style in which they have sent it forth. 

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